“During shift, you’d be sniffing it in the toilets, passing a bag back and forth with a co-worker. It was done in secret but the people that knew, knew.”
Tom started pulling pints in slowly gentrifying East London pubs during the 2010s, moving through the ranks to manage restaurants for well-known premium casual dining chains in the City. The picture he paints is of a controlled chaos that will resonate with many hospitality employees: from backbreaking double shifts to kitchen politicking. Part of that architecture was cocaine, alongside lashings of staff-discounted alcohol
“Cocaine wasn’t just normalised – it was completely embedded,” he says, to the point that both restaurants had an in-house sommelier dealing the drug. Tom, now sober, says he was using five or six days a week, long days and nights a balancing act between being binge-drinking on-shift and during breaks, then taking cocaine as a livener to keep him upselling until close.
Cocaine has long been woven in hospitality’s folklore – from the customers sinking pints to the chefs sniffing to survive 80-hour weeks. Gordon Ramsay himself has said that “it was spiralling out of control”. But should hospitality venues be doing more to tackle cocaine use – or is it easier to turn a blind eye?
Perhaps we are in the middle of a cultural shift, or maybe it was a myth to start with? Ultimately: is cocaine the white elephant in the room?
Declining usage
Cocaine’s peak season of popularity was 2009 when 6.5% of 16-to-24-year-olds took the illicit powder. Usage has been on a gradual downward trajectory amongst younger users since, with a stiff recent drop-off (now to 2.3%) in the recent England and Wales crime survey data. It has, however, declined far less among older users, while cocaine-related deaths have now risen for the 13th consecutive year.
There is sparse research around cocaine and hospitality, but 2020 government research did find that 26.3% of people visiting a pub or bar nine times or more in the previous month had used a drug in the last year, compared to 5.5% of people who hadn’t. Those who visited a nightclub at least four times in the previous month were 12 times more likely to have used cocaine recently.
Despite this, Michael Kill, CEO of The Night Time Industry Association argues the correlation does make it a hospitality specific issue. “It’s important that discussions around cocaine use don’t unfairly portray hospitality as the cause of the issue. Licensed venues are often on the frontline of managing wider societal challenges.”
Joni spent 12 years in hospitality until 2024, working her way to managing multiple venues – including wet-led and food pubs – for a small, independent operator. “The main culture, for everyone I know, was to have a rush at the start of an evening shift, work really hard, then the manager buys everyone working a shot,” she says. “And then it goes from there.”
Cocaine’s reputation as a tie-straightener – the drugs stimulating and dopamine-boosting properties countering the sloppiness induced by excessive alcohol – meant it was sometimes ordered when one shot turned to four. This was particularly likely on weekend shifts where there was a tacit decision to mirror the customer’s energy. “I’d think, ‘Hold on, I’m woozy now. I’m drunk and running a pub’. So we could sharpen up with some cocaine. Then that would creep over into lock-ins.”
She says that cocaine, other than a small family-run community pub that was her first job, was in every venue she worked in. “The manager running the shift set the tone,” she says. “Not necessarily just with drugs but drinking culture on shift.” This works for customers too. “It’s who the manager’s friends are,” Joni says, knowing that her punters would often be within a wide, extended social circle that weren’t going to cause trouble even if they were having a few furtive bumps.
She broadly didn’t object if they were doing so covertly in the toilets and behaving themselves. “It would have felt weird to be draconian about customers doing it when I was too,” adding that she’d perhaps think differently through older, sober eyes. Crucially, she says that the senior management largely turned a blind eye. “I don’t think they cared – as long as it’s not obvious to customers and everyone’s turning up to their shift on time and doing the work.”
Adam Winstock is a consultant psychiatrist, addiction medicine specialist and founder of Staying Safer. He thinks that “there’s the unsaid versus the said” when it comes to industry acceptance of cocaine use, where operators will publicly exhibit zero tolerance for staff and customers being under the influence of drugs. “But when you go to events where people are not necessarily representing their workplace, I think there is a more open recognition of the conflicting priorities around cocaine for both staff and for managers.”
This tension carves multiple ways: for staff, customers and those operators working in a brutal market and for whom chemically galvanised punters buying drinks may be a profitable customer base.
When it comes to staff, Adam says: “There is a problem when coke serves a dual purpose – both being something you take for pleasure and also that allows you to function because you’re serving until 3am.” For customers, there’s the possibility of antisocial behaviour, primarily around the enhanced consumption of alcohol. “I think the people who are most likely to be violent are those drunk and using cocaine. More aggression. More sexual assault. Customers won’t come back if they see that.”
A shifting demographic
Cocaine’s image and clientele have shifted, with increased availability and lower pricing meaning you can often pick up a bag of ‘pub grub’ – slang for cheap, lower-purity powder - at under £40. It’s no longer the preserve of City boys and rockstars. Press coverage now tends to demonise a mythical metropolitan middle class dinner party crowd or football hooligan adjacent lads - despite statistics user showing cocaine use now straddles income bands.
“I would be cautious about associating cocaine use with a particular type of customer or suggesting it defines certain venues,” says Michael Kill. “Drug use cuts across demographics and settings, and broad stereotypes can distract from the real issue, which is the need to reduce harm and support effective enforcement against criminal supply.”
While there aren’t public stats about cocaine-related crime in hospitality, Graeme Cushion, the managing partner at the licensing solicitors Poppleston Allen, notes a clear reduction in cocainerelated licensing issues raised by police and local authorities.
“I can’t think of any post-Covid. Maybe it’s due to cuts in police manpower, but I do get the feeling there are fewer reviews generally,” he says. Previously, there was a steady stream of licence reviews and premises visits where police would swab down toilets, bars and sometimes back offices.
Graeme says the baseline for those looking to keep their cisterns squeaky clean is staff training.
“Spotting the signs like someone frequently going to the toilet, maybe sniffing a lot. But they should also be toilet-checking, looking for giveaway signs like empty wrap bags.”
For anyone that does come under scrutiny, he says, “you have to play ball because otherwise they will review your licence – and that’s just a lottery. You might end up with action being taken that could cripple your business for the long term.”
Licences under review might have to change their entertainment offer, possibly music. Or a worst case scenario of reduced working hours or even loss of the licence altogether. “Tighten everything up. You need to take the short-term hit. Get rid of the problem,” Graeme adds.
Joni highlights a more malevolent presence when asked what she’d like to see more from operators regarding cocaine use. “The industry needs to put more attention and care into the young women working within it because there are so many predatory men running these venues. Drugs and alcohol play a big part in that. It’s just part of the culture – that they shag their staff and have this power.”
Emmy Watson of The Burnt Chef Project that tackles mental health stigma within hospitality, says: “Younger generations appear more willing to talk openly about their mental health, challenge unhealthy workplace norms and ask for support before they reach crisis point. That’s encouraging because the goal shouldn’t simply be reducing drug use. It should be creating workplaces where people don’t feel they need unhealthy coping mechanisms in the first place.”
She reports that many operators are getting more adept at facilitating this. “The best employers no longer see wellbeing and performance as competing priorities. They understand they’re intrinsically linked. They invest in supportive leadership, train managers to have difficult conversations and create environments where people feel safe asking for help early.”
While the older recipients to this feature unanimously alluded to cultural change – and it’s important to note the vast majority of the population, hospitality-employed or otherwise, don’t take cocaine – the multiple Generation Z workers we spoke to warned against jumping the gun.
“Cocaine was an open secret for customers,” says Nimal, who’s worked in kitchens across the sector. “I was the only one to abstain from cocaine and alcohol in the team – something I was teased for, because a 20-year-old couldn’t possibly recognise that these were destructive behaviours.”
This article first appeared in Restaurant’s sister title MCA. Pseudonyms have been used to protect the identities of people quoted in this article.