All-you-can-eat Chinese buffet to reopen - and give customers gloves to serve themselves

An all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet in Norwich is set to reopen next weekend for the first time since March.

Customers will be given gloves to serve themselves when Riverbank Chinese Buffet, on Riverside, reopens on Sunday, August 16.

Owner Toni Patching said they would be taking part in the government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme, which gives 50pc off from Mondays to Wednesdays.

She said changes had been made in order to enforce social distancing, including not all tables being in use, a one-way system and no teppanyaki station.

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Usually, she said, the restaurant would seat roughly 100 to 120 people, but now it will accommodate roughly 40.

Customers will still serve themselves for main meals using tongs, though they will be given gloves to do so. Diners will be given cutlery, rather than it being left near the dishes, and where staff would have regularly collected used plates, there will now be trolleys to put them on.

Ms Patching said the restaurant had undergone a refurbishment during lockdown, as part of its new chapter post-reopening.

It will open from 12pm to 9pm all week, and Thursdays to Sundays will see the restaurant’s lunch menu on throughout the day.