‘Childcare is one of our biggest expenses – nursery is £700 a month’

Jacqueline Nisbet on how she balances running four pubs with the needs of her young family

My husband and I work in the hospitality industry, running four traditional pubs and one restaurant in Edinburgh. We’ve been doing it for more than eight years and life is hectic – especially as I’ve just returned to work after baby number two and trying to grow a business in the fast-paced hospitality industry is hard. But we always push ourselves to do better.

We lease the properties and run them as our own business. We were proud that earlier this year our company, the Kilderkin Group, became the first multi-operator in Edinburgh to pay its staff the national living wage of £8.75 an hour. We’d been speaking about doing it for a while and we wanted to get the business in a position in which we could afford to do it. It was important for us because we want to see a change in the way hospitality is viewed – we want it to be seen as a viable career option.

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2GukYpt