The Assembly House in Norwich has closed its doors to the public – scaling back to core management staff until the building can be reopened.

Chef director of the Assembly House, Richard Hughes, said: “It is with extremely heavy hearts that we have taken the difficult decision to close our doors for the foreseeable future, in the hope that this situation will be remedied in the coming weeks, allowing us to reopen for business as usual.”

MORE: ‘There’s more they can do’: Hospitality sector asks for better government backing Key management staff will be kept on for tasks including deep cleaning, forward-planning and preparation for when the building can open again.

The restaurant closes with immediate effect and will only open to serve breakfast to hotel guests.

The doors will then close after breakfast service on Sunday March 22.

A spokesman for the venue continued that: “While there is no concrete advice to close such establishments, as yet, The Assembly House – which regularly hosts large-scale gatherings and was due to serve more than 400 people on Mother’s Day – has reacted quickly and closed until the safety of staff and customers can be guaranteed.”

Mr Hughes added: “The Assembly House is putting the health of everyone who visits or works in our building before anything else: their safety is of paramount importance to us.”

MORE: Last Brasserie closes with ‘immediate effect’ due to coronavirusElsewhere in Norwich the Woolf&Social announced it will be closing until further notice.

On Instagram Woolf&Social, which was recently named as the best local restaurant in Good Food Guide, said: “We have decided to close until further notice. We are a small local place with 30 seats. We cannot, in good conscience, allow our customers and staff to be in such close proximity despite our rigorous cleaning standards.

“We support the decision of our friends to stay open and will personally be using their takeaway services and encourage you to do the same. We appreciate the amazingly kind offers to purchase vouchers, but until we know exactly when and how we can reopen we feel it would be immoral to accept these.

“We have put a huge amount of everything into Woolf & Social, and we will not see it defeated by this thing.”