Social distancing is hard for restaurants. They have to space tables out rather than pack them close.
And because their business model depends on packing in as many people in on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, most thought they'd go bust as social distancing reduced the amount of people they could seat on those days.
The British government came up with a solution. A taxpayer funded discount of 50% up to £10 if you dined on Monday, Tuesdays and Wednesdays in August.
The thinking behind this was that as social distancing meant restaurants couldn't seat as many people on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, people should be encouraged to eat earlier in the week, so you had a socially distanced crowd throughout the week and could make your money that way.
The restaurant industry rolled their eyes. They weren't sure that people would bother dining out earlier in the week. They thought the discount was too small (a max of £10). They thought that all that would happen was that custom would be displaced from the end of the week to the start.
The actual results have been a revelation to them.
Restaurants have been full at the start of the week compared to the same period last year. But takings later in the week haven't really been depressed that much.
More surprising yet is that high end restaurants were also seeing an up-tick in demand. They had thought that a £10 discount on a £100 meal wouldn't be enough to tempt people - turns out that people just like discounts however small.
Perhaps the real genius of the government was in it's slogan: "Eat out to help out". People weren't thinking they were just going to the restaurant to get a discount. They virtuously believed they were doing it to "help out" the economy, and felt good about it.
Going forward, many of these restaurants are thinking of offering their own discounts when the government scheme ends at the end of this month. They hadn't done it before because they assumed there was a cultural barrier to eating out early in the week. But with people working from home, the entire week is now in play as people just want to get out of the house for a few hours for something nice like a meal in a restaurant.
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