A great number of catering units closed in the past couple of years – this may be the reason

By: Trademagazin Date: 2022. 08. 04. 10:06

Compared to 2019, there are 3,500 fewer catering establishments in Hungary. A third of the shops that were forced to close were operating in Budapest, the president of the Hungarian Catering Association told InfoRádio. According to László Kovács, new closures may be coming due to rising overhead costs, ever higher raw material prices and labor shortages, Infostart points out in its recent article.

According to László Kovács, there were approximately 51,000 stores in Hungary in 2019. Shortly after the onset of the pandemic, with certain “fluctuations”, the majority held their own, trusting that catering could resume once the epidemic was over, so there was no significant decrease in the number of stores at the beginning . Today, however, there are about 3,500 hospitality establishments – 1,500 restaurants, that is, hot kitchen businesses and approximately 2,000 entertainment venues and liquor stores – compared to 2019, the president of the Hungarian Hospitality Industry Board added. Meanwhile, the number of confectioneries and workplace catering increased minimally during the pandemic. One third of the 3,500 closed catering units were in Budapest, a significant part of them were nightclubs and liquor stores from the party district.