Restaurant business is fascinating industry because it covers the whole world and nearly everyone has used restaurant services. COVID-19 showed how external factors can have severe impacts to an industry and restaurant business witnessed it harsh. However, even without pandemic issues restaurant business can be quite regulated by external factors, especially in some countries like the Nordic countries. Government and local authorities set laws, limits and permissions for selling food and alcohol not to mention taxation.

Our purpose was to find out how does the Finnish restaurant industry perceive external factors of business environment restricting. We conducted a discourse analysis of a trade journal editorials over 40 years period and used PESTEL analysis as framework. The results show that external factors are regarded as a significant element in operating a restaurant business and main discourses are alcohol and taxation.