So Why Does Going Out in Yorkshire Still Feel So Expensive?
Ask most people where they’d rather spend a Saturday night and London rarely comes up as the obvious answer. Too expensive, too far, too much faff. But new research suggests the gap between the capital and the rest of the country is even starker than most people realise, and Yorkshire is sitting in a rather more flattering position than you might expect.
Casinos.com, the leading pay by phone casino and online gaming comparison site, analysed the night-out credentials of 50 UK cities, scoring each one across five key factors: the average price of a pint, average hotel costs, the number of pubs per 10,000 residents, the number of bars and clubs per 10,000 residents, and the total number of hotels available. The findings make for interesting reading, particularly for anyone who has ever winced at a London bar bill and wondered why they bothered making the trip.
London Finishes Last. Doncaster Finishes Third.
The headline finding is blunt. London, for all its reputation as the nightlife capital of the country, came dead last in the rankings with a score of just 5 out of 10. The culprit is cost. A pint in the capital averages almost £7, and an average hotel stay comes in at £209. When you add transport, a meal and a round or two, a night out in London can clear £200 per person without much effort.
Doncaster, by contrast, scored 9.06 out of 10, placing third nationally. A pint averages £3.75, the second cheapest in the entire study. The city also has 18.72 pubs per 10,000 residents, the second highest pub density of any UK city analysed. For a proper night out on a sensible budget, South Yorkshire is hard to beat.
Newcastle took second place nationally with a score of 9.8, scoring highly for affordable pints at an average of £4 and hotel prices averaging just £84. Brighton topped the overall ranking with a perfect 10, largely on the strength of its sheer density of venues: 8.49 bars and clubs per 10,000 residents and 24.46 pubs per 10,000.
So Why Does It Still Feel Like Going Out Is Getting Harder?
The rankings paint a flattering picture of Yorkshire’s value, and relative to London they’re accurate. But the picture on the ground is more complicated. The price of a pint in Doncaster may still be among the cheapest in the country, but it’s considerably more than it was three years ago. The same goes for food, for taxis, and for the kind of incidental spending that adds up over the course of an evening.
Research from Nationwide Building Society published earlier this year found that among UK consumers expecting their finances to worsen in 2026, almost two thirds plan to cut back on eating and drinking out. That’s not a London problem. It’s a national one, and Yorkshire’s independent hospitality sector is feeling it.
The Yorkshire Post this week reported on North Yorkshire small businesses being forced to close, with business owner Jo Foster noting the county was particularly exposed because of the central role that farming, food production and manufacturing play in its economy. Post-Brexit import rules have pushed up ingredient costs for small food businesses, while higher energy bills and increased employer National Insurance contributions from April have squeezed margins that were already tight.
Nationally, data from the Night Time Industries Association shows the UK lost 4.1% of its late-night venues in 2025 alone. These aren’t chains closing down. They’re the kind of independent places that give a city or a town its personality.
The Yorkshire Venues Making It Work
Against that backdrop, the businesses still standing and still thriving deserve some credit. Where There’s Smoke in Masham is a case in point. Chef Jon Atashroo runs a Michelin Guide-listed restaurant in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales, built around a weekly-changing seven-course set menu cooked entirely over fire, sourced almost entirely from local growers and farmers. He makes the ceramics. He built the tables. The set menu sits at £80 per head.
That sounds expensive. It is expensive. But read the TripAdvisor reviews, all five-star according to the Northern Echo’s recent coverage, and the word that keeps appearing is ‘value’. People are driving from across the country specifically to eat there. That’s what genuine quality does: it creates its own justification.
In York, a new food tour has launched that takes a different approach to the same challenge. Yorkshire Appetite’s Taste of Yorkshire Food Tour guides visitors through five city-centre venues serving traditional regional dishes: Yorkshire puddings with gravy, fish and chips cooked in beef dripping, local cake and handmade chocolate. Founder Kay Atkinson said the idea came from visitors arriving expecting regional food and being surprised to find something more internationally varied.
“Yorkshire food is warm and welcoming, like our people,” she said. “Our dishes are hearty and comforting. They’re like a hug in a dish.”
The tour runs on selected Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at £75 per person for three and a half hours. For anyone wanting to eat well, spend sensibly and keep the money in the local economy, it sits alongside the many other reasons why dining across Yorkshire is worth planning properly rather than leaving to chance.
Good Value Is Relative. Quality Is Not.
The research confirms something most people in Yorkshire already know intuitively: you get more for your money here than you do in London, Bristol or Belfast. A £3.75 pint in Doncaster versus almost £7 in the capital is not a trivial difference. Across an evening, it’s the difference between feeling comfortable and feeling like you’re being fleeced.
But value only matters if the things you’re spending money on are still there. The independents that make Yorkshire’s food and drink scene worth visiting are operating under real pressure. Staying local, spending at independent venues and choosing the meal at Where There’s Smoke over a safe chain restaurant option is how that pressure gets relieved.
Yorkshire lands in a strong position in the national night-out rankings. Keeping it there is a collective effort.