Today I want to chat with you about community life. Where we live is important. We know families value excellent local schools, open green spaces and excellent transport links. They are key reasons why people choose where they live, that and the proximity to friends and family.
But there are also other things and lifestyle is playing a very important role.
Everybody’s lifestyle is different, so today I wanted to take a closer look at the importance of restaurants and cafes in our area.
Across the UK there are over 150,000 restaurants and cafes. despite the economic pressures this is an 8% increase since 2019. As you might expect many of these have opened in the bigger cities such as London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Glasgow and Liverpool.
Lancaster has some fabulous restaurants including the award-winning Buccelli’s where you can sample authentic Italian food, Quite Simply French where you can enjoy the best seafood, the fabulous new Now or Never by the fab team at Journey Social where the menus are created to surprise and tantalise the tastebuds and our neighbours at Merchant 1788 whose chef is highly regarded and only use the best local ingredients available.
What’s interesting though is the emphasis and value that local people put on restaurants and cafes. They are seen as places to meet up with friends and family, to celebrate special occasions as well as enjoy good food. Two-thirds of people believe local restaurants are important in building a sense of community according to research conducted for Open Table. More importantly, nearly a third of the respondents said that local restaurants, pubs and cafes add value to their wellbeing.
What do you think? Are they important to you?
Which are your favourite restaurants, or cafes, or even pubs. We would love to know!
Thanks for reading
Michelle x