Hawksmoor sets out phased reopening strategy

Starting with its Borough site on 9 July, the group's eight-strong estate will undergo a phased reopening, with six sites set to be up and running within a month. 

The Borough restaurant will initially be open for weekday dinners and all weekend, allowing the team to get to grips with how to operate a restaurant under the Government's new Covid-secure guidelines.

Those lessons will then be applied to the rest of the estate in due course, as each respective site is reopened.

Alongside the restaurant reopenings, the business will also be continuing its 'Hawksmoor at Home' food delivery service, which is available to order nationwide via the Hawksmoor website. 

The meal boxes - which serve two and cost £120 - will be limited to 500 per week over the next six weeks, with the business saying there is scope to expand the range if it proves successful.

"The last few months have been intensely busy working out how to survive this crisis, support our staff and organisations doing incredible work feeding frontline workers and people in need in the communities we work in, and thinking about how to reopen all of our restaurants," says Hawksmoor co-founder Will Beckett.

"We could have perhaps done it quicker, but our very clear preference is to focus on doing it as well as possible.

"Our intention is to work extremely hard behind the scenes to make everything as safe for our staff and customers as possible, so that when you come and sit in our restaurants everything will feel as normal as it can be.

"We are lucky to have restaurants where social distancing is relatively easy, to have been able to consult with government on the guidance over the last months, and to have the resources to ensure we go above and beyond to ensure we are Covid-secure.

"We believe that customers are likely to want Hawksmoor to do what it has always done and offer people a haven from the outside world, where you can be comfortable with the people you’re eating and drinking with. If we learn differently, we will adapt."

A new date for the launch of Hawksmoor's first New York restaurant, which had been set to open in March and was delayed as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, is yet to be confirmed.