Cafes & coffee shops in United Kingdom

2026-08-16

The kids' menu goes back to 20% VAT on 2 September. Set the price now

VAT on qualifying children's meals has been 5% since 25 June. On Wednesday 2 September it goes back to 20%, and that is £119.05 out of every £1,000 those meals take, straight off your margin, unless you move the price. Here is the exact number to move it by, the promotion that quietly cancelled the relief for a lot of cafes, and why these ten weeks are worth more to you as data than they ever were as cash.

2026-07-23

You now pay sick pay from the first day off. Here is what that does to a cafe.

Quick version, because you are on the floor: from 6 April 2026 you pay Statutory Sick Pay from the first day someone is off sick, not from day four, and you pay it to staff you never used to (your very part-time people). Nobody handed you extra revenue to cover it, so it comes straight out of margin. Here is the real cost on a normal cafe rota, one rule that makes it bite cafes harder than most, and the bit that quietly shows up when you sell.

2026-07-08

The April 2026 National Living Wage rise lands hardest on cafes, and quietly on what a cafe is worth

The National Living Wage went up again on 1 April 2026, to £12.71 an hour. In most trades that is a line in a payroll email. In a cafe, where a big share of your hours are paid at or near the legal minimum, it moves the number at the bottom of the page. Here is what the 4.1% rise actually does to your margin, and the quieter thing it does to what your cafe is worth.