Would you like economic stimulus with that, sir?
A waitress serves food at the Home Sweet Home restaurant in Manchester as diners take advantage of the launch of Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme, which gives up to £10 off a meal and soft drinks from Monday to Wednesday throughout August. Restaurants, cafés and pubs have reported a surge in bookings.
‘I’ll probably use it more in the evenings... It’s quite a lot of money off. Though it’s probably not good for my waistline’
‘Eat out to help out starts today. Half lobster with fries, a little salad on the side. £21 but with the Rishi chip-in it becomes eleven quid a plate! Sheesh we’re gonna be busy.’
The Alexandra @Thealexsw19
‘8am and if you’re not already in a Spoons ordering your full English with coffee for £2.24 and sending the 50% bill to your grandchildren then you hate pubs.’
Martin Taylor @Nhs_martin
Buona Sera restaurant wouldn’t normally be packed with diners on a Monday lunchtime. A neighbourhood Italian that has been serving families in Clapham, south London, since 1989, it is well loved by hordes of loyal regulars but is rarely busy this early in the week.
Today, as people take advantage of Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s new Eat Out to Help Out scheme, almost every table is filled with patrons tucking in to steaming bowls of spaghetti and drinking cold white wine.
“You can’t believe the number of calls we’ve had, the emails asking “are you doing it, are you doing it?!” says Daniella Pesaresi, 33, who runs the restaurant with her father Franco, 62.
“We have been incredibly busy since we reopened… but not this much. It’s a Monday afternoon and they’re all here for the scheme, so that’s great.”
Once given the moniker “Nappy Valley” by Will Self in the London Review of Books, thanks to the high number of middle-class mothers with prams pounding its pavements, Northcote Road is just over a kilometre of cafés, restaurants, bars and delis in the heart of Wandsworth.
It boasts a mixture of chains and independent outlets, and is peppered with the usual suspects like Nando’s, Franco Manca and GBK alongside independent coffee shops and oldfashioned Italian restaurants.
These days it is populated by rather more 20-something graduates than young families, but the desire to spend money on food hasn’t waned with the shift in demographic. Al Gusto, a deli serving everything from eggs benedict to seafood risotto, is packed with parents treating children to lunch out and housemates taking a break from their work-from-home stations.
Georgia Stanton, 27, and Sally Panton, 27, are discussing the list of restaurants they want to book into in order to take advantage of the deal.
“I’ll probably use it more in the evenings but I think genuinely it’s going to make a huge difference,” says Stanton, an executive assistant at a hedge fund. “It’s quite a lot of money off. Though it’s probably not good for my waistline.”
The scheme applies to eat-in food and drink, Monday to Wednesday, at more than 72,000 venues. The deal allows you to get 50 per cent off your bill, though the discount is capped at £10 per person and doesn’t apply to alcohol, so while a £3 coffee is reduced to £1.50, if your bill is £21 you’ll still only get £10 off.
The scheme has been taken up by independent outlets and chains alike. At Rosa’s Thai, a couple who live nearby are taking the opportunity to take their lunch break away from their desks. “On a Monday lunchtime very rarely would we have gone out for lunch,” says Alex Yglesia, 32.
Pui Andre, the head chef, says she has never seen the restaurant so busy. “On a Monday lunchtime normally we’d have filled maybe four tables, but today as soon as we opened there was someone waiting to come in to use the offer. We’re fully booked on Monday night and Wednesday so it is busier than usual.”
At Joe and the Juice, friends Vicki Dacker, 30, and Louise Rasmussen, 31, arranged to meet for lunch as soon as they heard about the scheme.
“I’m obsessed with this place and I was like, Vics, we’re going to Joe and the Juice,” says Rasmussen, a trading manager. “It’s such a thing for socialising. You catch up with friends by going out for brunch or lunch or dinner.”
At Buona Sera, the Pesaresis wonder if the fact locals are staying at home this summer is contributing to how busy they are.
“This is a residential area and people are staying in the area,” says Daniella.
At the Breakfast Club, which is busy despite usually doing the majority of its business at weekends, Marie Mulvihill, 36, is treating her two children, Sam, four, and Emma, eight months, to lunch out. “It’s a significant amount for a family of three,” she says. “You buy that extra coffee or you might look at the dessert menu. I do think it helps. We wouldn’t normally go out to eat at lunchtime but the weather was so good and the scheme is a good opportunity.” Until the end of August, then, lunch (half of it, at least) is on Rishi Sunak.