Restaurant merch used to mean a Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt. But now, many roasteries, bakeries, breweries and restaurants are offering covetable, design-savvy merchandise. At a time when the hospitality industry is in tatters because of the pandemic – UK restaurants and casual dining firms recorded almost 30,000 job losses in 2020 and seven in 10 restaurants fear they will have to close as a result of the pandemic – many establishments around the country, including Crazy Pedros, a pizza parlour and tequila bar with branches in Manchester and Liverpool, the Taiwanese cult restaurant Bao, Mangal 2 and Top Cuvée, have seen a rise in merchandise sales. “The T-shirts have been absolutely flying out,” says Max Halley of Max’s Sandwich Shop. Merchandise is a way for customers to support their favourite spots. For many businesses, ithas been a genuine help. “T-shirt sales have topped up pay packets, paid rent and utility bills ... money we owed suppliers and all that sort of stuff. They have kept our heads above water,” says Halley. As Brodie Meah, co-owner of north London’s Top Cuvée restaurant and wine shop, points out, it helps that “There’s a better margin on selling T-shirts than a plate of cooked food”. If it seems strange that people want to advertise where they get their pizza from, remember we are living in an age of merch – you need only look to the amount of inauguration merch for evidence. We are also living in a time when brands are expected to present a three-dimensional face to the world. Look to London’s Mangal 2 – known for its witty and politicised Twitter feed (they recently asked “Is 2021 the year Mangal 2 finally gets to fight Saltbae?”, the Turkish chef whose meat seasoning technique became a well-known meme). No wonder its customers don’t just want a kebab. Ditto a brand such as Somerset-based Girls Who Grind Coffee. They might not have a physical cafe but their T-shirts, featuring slogans such as “Girls & Coffee & Fuck the Patriarchy”, savvily sell themselves beyond the beans. Wearing a restaurant T-shirt is akin to wearing a band tee to signal your identity. Halley makes sense of this move away from the Ramones to ham hock and piccalilli subs: “Who are the cool bands these days anyway? You don’t see many people walking about in a One Direction T-shirt do you?” Ryan Doyle, of Manchester-based DR.ME, the designers of Top Cuvée’s T-shirts says: “In a way, restaurants have replaced musicians and DJs for the time being. So you want to make something that feels special, more than just a logo on a white tee.” As Halley puts it: “It’s just wonderful because it has genuinely helped us get through this awful shitfest.” Plus, speaking about one of his designs that reads simply: “Fuck sourdough”: “I can use them to vent my feelings about how awful – for sandwiches – bloody sourdough is! Which is nice.”