Restaurant sales buoyed by Eat Out to Help Out legacy
Restaurants continued to enjoy some of the benefits of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme this month as customers felt more comfortable going out for a meal.
Diners spent 14 per cent more in restaurants in the first week of September than they did the same week last year after August’s discount scheme gave consumers the confidence to return to restaurants after months in lockdown.
The Eat Out to Help Out scheme allowed customers to receive 50 per cent off their food and soft drinks order up to a value of £10 per person on Mondays to Friday
In further good news for the UK high street, the proportion of transactions completed in store rather than online has continued to rise.
At the height of lockdown in April just half of spending was in store, rising to 65 per cent in July and 67 per cent in August.
Brits are also travelling further to spend, in a sign of encouragement for quiet towns and city centres. In August the median card transaction was 3.5km away from home, compared to 2.3km in July and as little as 1.6km in April.
In February, the month before the pandemic it the UK, the median distance was 3.8km.
Lloyds Bank head of current accounts Martin Turner said: “Our card spending data shows us that the Eat Out to Help Out scheme had the effect it desired, to once again fill restaurants and pubs, and to increase spend at other high-street stores.
“More and more have started to spend in person, and while the numbers suggest that online spending is still more popular than it was before the pandemic, the gap is closing.
“UK consumers are showing their resilience via both online and high street spend. So while there is cause for optimism, we continue to monitor the recovery closely.”