Eat Out to Help Out scheme is set to smash 80million-meal barrier tonight at £400m cost to taxpayer

The Eat Out to Help Out scheme is set to smash through the 80 million-meal barrier tonight at a £400 million cost to the taxpayer on the last night of Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s scheme.

Diners have endured three hour queues for their final 50% discounts of up to £10 per head which have been offered at restaurants across the country since the beginning of August.

The Treasury estimates that the average claim is close to £5, and after 64million meals were claimed for during the increasingly-popular scheme’s first three weeks, the 80million expected to have participated in ‘Rishi’s Dish’s’ will have cost the taxpayer around £400 million. 

Customers at Josie’s cafe in Winchester were told it would take three hours to get a table if they joined a virtual queuing system via a mobile app while those heading to Nando’s in Hammersmith, London, claimed they faced a two-hour wait.

One of the lucky few to get a seat was accountant Brandon Reis, 25, who told MailOnline: ‘The opportunity to make savings like this may never come again, so I’ve been eating out two to three times a week.’  

Scroll down for video.  

There were also long queues outside restaurants at the Westfield shopping centre in White City, west London.  

Sylvia Betterman had tried to get into Wahaca with her three children Jacob, 18, Stella, 13 and Lydia, 14, but they were turned away and told there were five people ahead of them.  

Jacob said: ‘I thought because there’s so many restaurants in Westfield we wouldn’t have to wait. But we went to Wagamamas and it looked like a 25 minute wait, and Ping Pong was even more, about 40 minutes.’

Meanwhile, carpenter Simon Davies, 51, hardly had to queue at all when he popped into his local Wetherspoons in nearby Shepherds Bush, for a traditional breakfast and Bud Light for £3.85. 

‘You can’t beat a breakfast and beer,’ he said. ‘It’s less than you’d pay for a sandwich, and the food’s great.’ 

The Chancellor said more than 64million meals had been claimed since the initiative was launched at the beginning of August. 

The scheme has seen the government pay 50% of the bill up to £10 per head at participating restaurants from Monday to Wednesday in a bid to boost the hospitality industry and keep jobs.  

Reports that it could be extended to help hard-pressed city centres were today dismissed by a senior Treasury source, who told MailOnline: ‘We love it as much as everyone else but Rishi is very clear about hard stops.’ 

Pub operator JD Wetherspoon has said it will fund discounts on meals from Monday to Wednesday until at least November 11, describing the scheme as a ‘great boost’ to the hospitality industry. 

Eat out to Help Out was part of an attempt to boost the hospitality industry in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak and help hard-pressed town centres.

Every table was full today at Josie’s, which is one of the most popular cafés in Winchester. 

Jackie Reis had taken her children Jessica, 19, a waitress, and accountant Brendon, 25, out for brunch with their partners.

‘I’ve just got back from Portugal and I’ve never felt safer,’ she said. ‘I felt safe over there and I feel safe here. I’ve been avoiding big gatherings of people, but I’m just looking forward to things going back to normal.’

Her son, Brendon, agreed. ‘I’ve been going out a lot more since Eat Out To Help Out was introduced,’ he said. ‘I’ve ending up spending way more than I would otherwise. It’s like when a shop has a sale and you buy loads of things you never knew you needed.

‘The opportunity to make savings like this may never come again, so I’ve been eating out two to three times a week. The scheme has definitely worked.’

His partner, 24-year-old Zoe Martin, a primary school teacher, agreed. ‘The fear is all behind us now,’ she said. ‘We’re all just looking forward to a bit of normality when school starts again next week.’

Waitress Jessica Reis, who was on her day off with her family, said that the opportunity to save had changed her habits. ‘Before Covid, I used to go out a couple of times a month. Now it’s a weekly occurrence,’ she said. 

Her partner, Rob King, 19, who works in a garage in Eastleigh, added that the discount had ‘given everyone the confidence we need to get the economy moving’.

‘Everyone wants to make the most of it,’ he said. ‘There was a slight anxiety at first, after emerging from lockdown, but we soon shrugged that off.

‘With the safety measures in place everywhere, we don’t feel in any danger and things are pretty much back to normal. But that could all change if there was a sudden increase in cases.’

But the Government’s discount scheme had not motivated everyone. Hannah Busby, 25, and her sister Emily, 22, were standing outside the café trying to decide whether it was worth waiting three hours for a table.

‘We were expecting it to be busy, but not like this,’ Hannah said. ‘To be honest, we’ve only come out because it’s a Bank Holiday. Saving ten quid is neither here nor there.’

Emily added: ‘The savings haven’t made a difference throughout. We didn’t normally go out from Monday to Wednesday, and we don’t now either. It’s only due to the Bank Holiday that we’re here.’

Their friend, bricklayer Craig Caisley, 24, agreed. ‘People are motivated to get out into town after the lockdown anyway,’ he said. ‘It’s not really about the money.’ 

 In Hammersmith, west London, Liezle Greyling, 49, was at a Wetherspoons enjoying the discount with her daughters Lilia, 12, and Mea, 9.

‘Three breakfasts and juices cost us eight pounds,’ she said. ‘It’s amazing. We’ve been using the scheme a lot, and have been to places such as Tortilla and Nando’s.’ 

There were also long queues outside restaurants at the nearby Westfield shopping centre, where mother Pinz Sanie, 43, said she had used the discount on each of the 13 days it has been active for.   

Solicitor Sarah Campbell, 29, was standing next to them in the queue while she waited for a friend. ‘The weather has also played a factor,’ she said.

‘I live in a flat, so when it was sunny I went out to beer gardens a lot, as I don’t work on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

‘The discount was nice but it wasn’t a dealbreaker. I think it did give a lot of people confidence, though. And heaven knows we need it at the moment.’ 

Manee, 19, and Meena, 19, from Southall, queued for just under 10 minutes to get a table at Wagamamas in Westfield in White City, London. 

Manee said: ‘We would queue for about 20 minutes before we’d walk away.’

She was unsure if Wagamamas even did the Eat Out to Help Out, and said she never gets the chance to do it during the day because of her job in a charity shop. 

Asked what they were going to get, Manee, who works at another Wagamama branch in Heathrow Airport, said: ‘We usually get the sides, so we’ll get them today.’  

Piers Morgan also praised the scheme, tweeting: ‘The ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme has been a great success & helped so many restaurants/cafes/pubs get back on their feet. 

‘Once again, Rishi Sunak appears to be the only member of the Govt who knows what he’s doing in this crisis.’ 

Announcing the end of the scheme, Mr Sunak said: ‘As the Eat Out to Help Out scheme draws to a close, I want to say thank you to the diners who have fallen back in love with their local.

‘To the managers who have spent weeks ensuring their restaurants were safe and to the chefs, waiters and waitresses across the country who have worked tirelessly, sometimes with more customers than they’ve ever had before – all helping to protect 1.8 million jobs in the hospitality sector.

‘The scheme reminded us why we as a nation love dining out and I urge diners to maintain the momentum to help continue our economic recovery.’

The idea of keeping the scheme going was said to be a matter of live discussion within the Treasury.

One minister told The Daily Telegraph: ‘The scheme has been a big success in general, but it’s all very well going to your local restaurant down the road for a cheap meal when those restaurants are already doing good business because of people working from home.

‘It is the destination restaurants in city centres that need the help, and that’s where resources should be concentrated.’

But a Treasury source has now ruled this out.  

A number of chains and establishments have said they will continue the practice into September despite Government financial support being withdrawn.

Wetherspoon’s said prices on a range of meals and drinks will be reduced from Monday to Wednesday until November 11.

The cheaper prices will start on Tuesday, following the end of the Government’s drive to encourage people to eat out by subsidising meals during August.

Wetherspoon said prices on some of its meals and drinks will be cheaper than those available in takeaways. 

Chairman Tim Martin said: ‘The Government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme was extremely popular with our customers and a great boost to the hospitality industry.

‘We are keen to offer our customers a superb choice of food and drink at great value for money prices.

‘Our offer means that a classic beef burger in our pubs will be even better value than McDonald’s.’ 

Jemima Ferguson, marketing director at itsu, said: ‘The scheme has been hugely successful for us at itsu.

‘It’s helped to drive over 50% more transactions during the Eat Out to Help Out period each week, without negatively impacting our trade during the rest of the week.

‘We believe ripple effects from the positive impact of this scheme will be felt for many months to come.’

Meg Ellis, of Honest Burgers, said: ‘We’ve been really encouraged by the shift in energy in our sector as a result of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme.

‘We’ve been able to bring more people back into work as a result of the scheme, which they have really enjoyed, and for some of our friends operating independently in the sector this has been the opportunity to confidently re-open for the first time.

‘Seeing the vitality coming back into their restaurants has been a joy to witness.’

The boss of the Greene King pub chain told the BBC that that city centre sites were still struggling, especially in London, despite some of its 3,100 sites seeing a significant boost in sales.  

Andy Lennox, who runs two Zim Braii restaurants in Bournemouth and also founded The Wonky Table network of around 500 hospitality firms, said: ‘Trade’s record-breaking at the moment.

‘It is a false bubble so we’re not getting too excited, but Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are up probably 100% [on last year]. The week’s up 50%. Thursday has pivoted – it’s the new Monday.’

DOMINIC LAWSON: Now we’ve got the appetite back, we must all keep eating for Britain

Good luck getting into your favourite restaurant today, if you haven’t booked long in advance. 

This Bank Holiday Monday is the final day of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, in which diners can claim 50 per cent of the cost of their meal (up to a maximum of £10 a head) from the Government. 

Or rather, from all of us, as taxpayers. 

But this is no time for cavilling. Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s ploy was regarded by Treasury civil servants as so abnormal that he compelled them to authorise it with a ‘ministerial direction’. 

This is the formal instrument required when a Permanent Secretary (the most senior civil servant in each department) believes a spending proposal is ‘improper or represents poor value for money’. 

But the sheer scale of its take-up — in the first three weeks, no fewer than 64million discounted meals were claimed in over 80,000 restaurants and pubs — has helped rescue our hospitality industry at a time of unprecedented commercial peril. 

Jolt 

Perhaps the civil servants believed the scheme would simply subsidise meals that would be sold anyway, or would just shift business to the early part of the week (the discount was available from Monday to Wednesday). 

But the extent of the surge in demand, even above levels in normal, pre-Covid times, suggests it has done much more than that. 

As David Williams, owner of the Baltic Market, which houses a dozen catering businesses in a converted 18th century brewery in Liverpool, observed earlier this month: ‘People, myself included, underestimated the effect it was going to have.

‘Most restaurants in Liverpool now, you can’t even get a table for the whole of August, Monday to Wednesday.’ 

The scheme sent a jolt of electricity through a population which was reluctant to eat out at all, not necessarily through fear of infection but just inertia or a habit acquired during lockdown. 

But there is a second, much less popular Government policy which must also take some credit for the salvation (temporary or not) of countless small businesses associated with domestic tourism. 

This is the sudden imposition of quarantine restrictions on Britons returning from certain other countries. 

First it was Spain, then France, then Croatia. 

Now even ultra-hygienic Switzerland has been removed from the list of nations with a quarantine-free ‘travel corridor’ to the UK. 

In all these cases, the requirement that returning travellers should self-isolate for a fortnight has been rushed through with little warning, based on reported increases in Covid infections in the countries concerned. 

That is the official line, and is justified publicly as a means of limiting further outbreaks of the virus in the UK. 

It is therefore odd that, unlike in other countries, the quarantining process here seems to be so ineffectually invigilated. 

As the journalist Jenni Russell observed: ‘I have come through the e-gates at Heathrow twice this summer and watched fellow passengers passing through en masse without either filling in their forms or being stopped. 

‘There’s no reinforcement of the quarantine message on arrival, no leaflets, no sense that this really matters.’ 

Hotspots

It is almost as if the real reason for the apparently capricious imposition of these requirements was to deter people from taking their holidays overseas and instead spend their money here — as an additional inducement to Sunak’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme. 

If so, it has worked — and not just in such obvious hotspots as Cornwall, where one in three private sector jobs are connected to tourism. 

James Mason, the chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: ‘We’ve been doing a roaring trade since July . . . supply can’t meet demand and many businesses are saying they’re booked into September and October.’ 

The chairman of the Wales Tourism Alliance, Andrew Campbell, happily reported that ‘self-catering is flying. It’s been booked out to an unprecedented level’. 

In 2018, international tourists spent just shy of £20billion in Britain. 

So, given that the big spenders, notably the Chinese and the Americans, were always going to stay away from the UK this summer, it was essential for British families to replace the absent foreign tourists. 

That does seem to have happened. Indeed, we have just returned from a fortnight in Cornwall. 

In our case, this was standard: in the more than a quarter of a century since our children were born, we have spent all but two of our summer holidays in either Cornwall or the Isles of Scilly. 

We were braced for the Cornish roads to be even more busy than usual in August — and they were. 

Crowded 

But still, the astoundingly beautiful coastal path was in no way crowded, and on our walks from the cottage we rented, we would generally be able to take in those glorious views with no one else within eyeshot. 

The point about tourism is that while the most well-known beauty spots are always inundated with holidaymakers, you don’t have to go far off the beaten track for less competitive sightseeing. 

But it was noticeable how some of the most sought-after restaurants had dropped out of Eat Out to Help Out: they simply couldn’t cope with the volume of people turning up. 

So we paid full whack for lunch at the Heron Inn, with its gorgeous estuary vista high above Truro. 

Please note, we were not having a ‘staycation’. 

This term, properly used to describe those who take their holiday while staying at home, is now being applied to all vacations taken in one’s own country, which is a nonsense. 

Actually, the term ‘staycation’ describes what millions of Britons did for months during lockdown and furlough. 

But now the eating out and holidaying in Britain habits have returned, they need to continue even in the absence of Sunak’s ingenious stimulus. 

Your nation’s hostelries need you.