Trot­ters Restau­rant’s Gulf City branch will of­fi­cial­ly close its doors this week­end.

In a Face­book post yes­ter­day, Trot­ters said, “Af­ter five in­cred­i­ble years of chal­lenges, growth and un­for­get­table mo­ments, Trot­ters Gulf City will be clos­ing its doors on Sun­day, No­vem­ber 2nd."

Trot­ters Group CEO Pe­ter George Jr said the de­ci­sion was not dri­ven by emo­tion but by eco­nom­ics, as it was a hard, un­avoid­able call in the face of mount­ing costs, shift­ing fis­cal poli­cies and an in­creas­ing­ly hos­tile busi­ness cli­mate that has pushed T&T’s restau­rant sec­tor to its lim­its.

George told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing the Face­book post, that the group’s de­ci­sion was shaped by a con­flu­ence of pres­sures that no pru­dent busi­ness could ig­nore.

He not­ed T&T’s slow post-COVID re­cov­ery and the shift­ing of con­sumer spend­ing, which has led to the restau­rant in­dus­try, still reel­ing glob­al­ly from pan­dem­ic dis­rup­tions, fac­ing what he calls “an ex­tinc­tion event” caused by steep new tax­es and spi­ralling in­put costs.

For an in­dus­try that de­pends heav­i­ly on food-and-bev­er­age sales, that lev­el of es­ca­la­tion de­stroys the eco­nom­ic log­ic of full-ser­vice din­ing. Cus­tomers can now get “four times the val­ue” by buy­ing al­co­hol at re­tail prices and drink­ing at home, un­der­cut­ting one of the key prof­it cen­tres that keeps restau­rants vi­able.