Two restaurants in East Yorkshire, the Triton Inn in Brantingham and The Fox and Coney in South Cave, have announced that they’re moving to 4-day weeks for staff, while staying open seven days a week.

John Garton, the restaurants’ area manager, said: “Staff won’t see a cut in their pay – so they will still see the same salary working four days a week as they would have done five days.”

He added: “The decision wasn’t taken lightly, but hospitality is a busy sector and we’d much prefer having happy and engaged staff. If this means having the restaurants closed some days, we will.”

Even though both eateries are recruiting, Garton said the plan is still to have enough staff rotating so that the restaurants can open seven days a week, but still allow employees to only work four-day weeks. He added that employees would also have alternative weekends off.

This used to be something that only elite restaurants like Maaemo and Attica could do, but more and more, this is a practice that’s seeping down into nice restaurants: both the Triton and the Fox and Coney are the kinds of very nice pubs that I can’t resist stopping at, not Michelin-starred restaurants with international reputations that I can’t afford!