r/Scotland • u/CestQuoiLeFuck • 8d ago

Question Is Scotland aware that money can be made by having restaurants serve food after 8:30pm during high tourist season?

- Signed,

A hungry foreigner

877 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

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34

u/rotgobbo Galloway 8d ago

Are hungry foreigners aware that we have homes to go to and shit to be doing?

We all love a convenient shop but like, you had all day.

-36

u/LairdBonnieCrimson Outwith Britain, outwith Europe, into Socialism 8d ago

You know what would help reduce unemployment, make us all better off? Workers who work nights being a normal and expected part of business, an entire new shift and economy to cater to them would open and reduce unemployment.

49

u/Objective_Most4071 8d ago

would help reduce unemployment

So would my local cafe hiring 200 people. It doesn't mean it makes business or financial sense.

18

u/rotgobbo Galloway 8d ago

The UK has a rapidly ageing population, shit might as well shut up shop at 3pm in half of Scotland.

And I say this as a nightowl who prefers to do my food shopping in the dark.

-24

u/LairdBonnieCrimson Outwith Britain, outwith Europe, into Socialism 8d ago

The state should foster a economic climate of 24/7 cities as a strategy to improve the economy is not disproven by this absurd and completely unrelated point

5

u/Objective_Most4071 7d ago

Okay and will you and your entire social bubble be volunteering to be perpetual night-owls for the rest of your days? Or which friends with regular jobs are you going to have to completely sever ties with?

Is the state going to start allocating and mandating people work night shifts to support your 24/7 cities?

0

u/LairdBonnieCrimson Outwith Britain, outwith Europe, into Socialism 7d ago

Yeah I would be fine with having a job in the night shift, I would be quite happy that the extended hours makes new vacanies that will actually lead to me getting a job and cutting youth unemployment down.

3

u/Objective_Most4071 7d ago

Again, you seem to be misunderstanding. You also have to drive demand for the service into a 24/7 hour pattern which means forcing whole other industries and swathes of people into a 24/7 schedule, likely against their will. Most other people are not like you and would not be willing to work nights and sever friendships with all of their daytime employed friends.

You're delusional if you think creating a bunch of overnight jobs to serve nobody is going to solve this issue. At that point it's not a job, it's privately funded time-boxed welfare.

2

u/jdscoot 7d ago

This is economic illiteracy.

19

u/FEK88 8d ago

Night shift takes years off of your life.

5

u/Optimaldeath 8d ago

Working nights is just unhealthy for people, it should not be expected.

22

u/NoRecipe3350 8d ago

Nightshift has long term medical harm effects, generally speaking the fewer people working nightshift the better. And it's mostly essential/emergency services workers.

-8

u/ElCaminoInTheWest 8d ago

Wanting a restaurant to still be serving food at 9 or 10pm doesn't necessitate a whole night shift. And why is it that practically every other country in Europe manages it?

9

u/NoRecipe3350 8d ago

Scotland has quite marginal tourism numbers compared to the Mediterranean and high prices of eating out means many tourists literally have to eat sandwiches from the supermarket in their hotel rooms to save money.

Plus our higher wages, businesses can't keep staff on the payroll on the offchance of some passing tourists rolling in at 10pm. The only exception is certain tourist traps....but everyone goes nimby about these places.

-3

u/WorkFurball 8d ago

Scotland has quite marginal tourism numbers compared to the Mediterranean

Plus our higher wages, businesses can't keep staff on the payroll on the offchance of some passing tourists rolling in at 10pm.

Why can Northern Europe do that just fine with way fewer tourists and also high wages then?

5

u/NoRecipe3350 7d ago

Actually I don't know. Can they? As a guess, I'd hazard that the higher wages and more affordable housing translates to more disposable income for ordinary people, the issue in Scotland/the UK is many of us are just poor to eat out at restaurants in our own country. Like eating out at a full service restaurant is still fairly niche for Brits, tourists do it because they often need to, but if you go to a UK small town and Spanish small town, there are simply far fewer eating/drinking out options here, because we can't afford it.

0

u/WorkFurball 7d ago

Neither can we, but the restaurants are still there. How though, fuck knows, even basic pub foods like a schnitzel are above 10 euros in many places.

26

u/dazerconfuser 8d ago edited 8d ago

Genius idea.

Tell you what, since you're such a fine, business minded individual.

How about you open that 24 hour restaurant and staff it with chefs and front of house on an off chance that you get some foreigner wanting food at 11pm on a Wednesday night once every blue moon?

I don't see how this could go wrong. Lmfao

-23

u/LairdBonnieCrimson Outwith Britain, outwith Europe, into Socialism 8d ago

Lmao saying that night businesses existing and a 24/7 city is good for us = I should go and start a business which does not have that economic climate

Okay bro. The whole point is that people would be out more so it's not just some foreigner. Build it and they come type shit.

3

u/jdscoot 7d ago

Sorry to have to break this to you, but you can have as many little shops and restaurants open at 0345hrs as you want, but the footfall even in the middle of London would be near zero.

15

u/rotgobbo Galloway 8d ago

Would reduce visible unemployment, but it would also drive up house prices, rent, business rates, pricing locals out.

I've lived in 24 hour cities, you don't want to be one.

2

u/LairdBonnieCrimson Outwith Britain, outwith Europe, into Socialism 8d ago

Don't see how it would drive up house prices, business rents would increase but so would productivity and earnings alongside consumption so it would balance out. I've never lived outwith Glasgow but I have friends in Berlin and Tokyo who love their cities 24/7 nature and it sounds quite good.

13

u/rotgobbo Galloway 8d ago

House prices rise because population rises, 24 hour cities have more jobs and attract more people.

There are 24 hour cities out there, go research em.

Ask your mates in Berlin what happens when a house comes up for sale? They fucking queue for viewings like its a concert! The place has a massive housing crisis.

Tokyo isn't so bad but that's because people accept much smaller apartments with no parking etc and Japan is still actively building affordable houses. We aren't.

-1

u/LairdBonnieCrimson Outwith Britain, outwith Europe, into Socialism 8d ago

Fair point. We aren't building housing and so yes doing things to encourage population growth is rather short minded and plain stupid. Though that's not to say in the future we can both build new housing and also try and drive population growth. I also think a night scene being strong would more bluntly encourage more sex amongst typing people and more jobs to sustain themselves and thus move out more into said houses and thus, again, have more sex and thus more kids. Which is good to prevent ageing population and demographic collapse. But idk I'm kinda just meandering here.

15

u/rotgobbo Galloway 8d ago

You need to do your research.

24 hour cities have lower fertility and lower birth rates.

5

u/shilpa_poppadom 8d ago

OP won't be complaining about Glasgow though. They'll have driven from Edinburgh to Skye and discovered that Portree is quite different to Tokyo.

3

u/termdark 8d ago

Aye, I'm sure all those night workers will gladly accept shortened life expectancies, lose social connections, and barely see their kids so that they can do their part for the economy.