Restaurants and casual dining firms recorded almost 30,000 job losses during 2020 - a 163% rise on the year before, new data has revealed.
New figures from the Centre for Retail Research have shown 29,684 jobs were cut by fine dining, independent businesses and large chains during last year - a sharp increase on the 11,280 recorded in 2019.
The large increase in job losses comes after firms were hit by two national lockdowns, local lockdown restrictions, curfews, changes to service rules and recently strengthened tiered measures, PA reports.
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Hundreds of restaurants and venues have shut their doors for good as firms have tumbled into administration and launched dramatic restructuring deals to keep them trading.
Among the various big chains to have experienced significant difficulties during the year were Carluccio's, Byron Burger, Casual Dining Group and Chiquito.
The CRR also said that branch closures by hospitality firms increased by 75.8% to 1,621, compared with 922 in 2019.
It highlighted major closure proposals and redundancy plans at companies such as Pizza Express, SSP Group, Casual Dining Group, The Restaurant Group and Mitchells & Butlers during the year.
According to the real estate adviser Altus Group, in England, given the Tier adjustments which came into effect on New Year's Eve, 4,946 restaurants are in Tier 3 and 22,082 are in Tier 4 and are all closed except for takeaway.
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Just five restaurants in the Isles of Scilly remain open for diners, according to Altus' latest analysis.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR, said the pandemic accelerated a major shake-up of the sector which was already taking place.
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He said: "The sector experienced rapid growth in outlets during 2014 to 2017 as successful chains added additional branches.
"But they frequently paid too much whilst maintaining quality standards proved difficult.
"The need to cut costs caused by over-expansion, increased competition and weak consumer demand produced a crisis in the industry before the pandemic."