At least one north Norfolk hotel is going to be carrying on the East Out To Help Out craze with its own offer.
The Dormy House Hotel, in West Runton has decided to extend the scheme themselves.
Throughout September, the restaurant will open its doors to diners on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, offering up to 50pc off bills at a maximum of £10 per person - although this will exclude alcohol.
The hotel had enjoyed bumper numbers during August and put on events such as a barbecue in a marquee and roast dinners.
Manager James Bales said: “We’ve extended the scheme by another four weeks, because it has been successful, but also it’s good to give people some money off at the moment everyone is finding it tough.
“We still get people coming out for the first time since lockdown every day so we’re just extending it to allow people to have more opportunity to experience different things and treat themselves.
“It’ll run a least until the end of September and we might then do something similar in the following month, it all depends how it goes, it’s not even for us really, we’re doing it just for locals who haven’t been out for a long time, obviously it does drive business, but it’s not our main reason for doing it.”
The Rising Sun in Coltishall said it wouldn’t be financially viable for them to follow the Dormy in creating their own scheme, as they hope to entice back the numbers with a new wood fire pizza oven.
Front of house supervisor, Matt Rush said: “We’re going to really push for business, we’re going to be keeping our heads down and really try everything we can to keep the business up.
“The scheme did really well, it really did, it was smashing with the amount of people coming through the door and a lot of people that you wouldn’t normally get coming in as well.
“I know a lot of people have just carried it on off their own backs but for us that was a choice that we just didn’t really feel comfortable making. I understand it in places where they’re taking like £1,000 a day which to be honest if you can cut your prices and take £2,000 in a day that is going to help but we can do the big days without it so we’d almost be cutting our nose off to spite our face with that.”
Eric Snaith, north Norfolk hotelier and restaurateur, runs Eric’s Fish and Chip shop in Holt, a pizza restaurant in Thornham, as well as Titchwell Manor hotel on the coast.
Speaking of Eat Out To Help Out, he said: “Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday has been the new weekend as it’s been busier than other days and helped to give people more confidence coming out too.”
Mr Snaith said he would look at putting on different offers in September depending on how the trade goes.
He added: “We are a bit unsure how busy we will be. We are constantly dealing with uncharted territory.”
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