Stokes Croft is Bristol's epicentre of counterculture and alternative nightlife and is jampacked with independent bars, clubs, shops and restaurants. But to what extent has the ongoing economic situation and cost of living impacted traders at Stokes Croft? We talked to six traders to see how business is going and the impact the cost of living crisis and high energy bills has had. Here’s what we found:
5. Caribbean Croft
Matt, one of the chefs at Caribbean Croft, said: "It's impacted us a little bit. I'd say I've been here for nearly two years now, and there's definitely been a drop in the amount of customers we're getting in. We're still busy, but I know from my experience when I first started, every day and every week was always busy. And now during the week we're a bit quieter, but we're still really busy on the weekends. So, yeah. It's definitely impacted us a little bit, but probably not as much as I guess a lot of other places around."
6. Love it Bristol
Thomas, the owner of Love It Bristol, a little art shop on Stokes Croft, said: "People are spending less money and the items they're buying are the smaller ones, so generally, our overall takings have gone down quite considerably. We're just managing to struggle on because we've got low overheads here, but it is getting harder and year on year, we're not sure whether we can really justify carrying on, certainly from a financial point of view, but because of the type of shop we are with supporting local artists, it's more of a voluntary thing really because we don't actually earn the money, so it's getting harder to run it as a sustainable business."