The bakery chain Greggs said they were planning to reopen branches next week, but will now begin behind closed doors.
Earlier this weeks, they announced plans to re-open 20 stores on a trial basis in the Newcastle area from Tuesday.
Greggs are now saying that the re-openings are merely “to test our new operational safety measures” and will not even allow customers in.
Greggs is one of a few fast food chains that have revealed plans this week to begin a phased re-opening.
The sausage roll supplier has more than 2,050 shops across the UK and all of them have been forced to close during the lockdown of the country. They have decided to open 20 of them as part of a “controlled trial”.
A Greggs spokesperson said: “Due to the significant interst in our 20-shop trial, and the risk that excessive numbers of customers may plan to visit Greggs, we will now initially operate these trials behind closed doors in order to effectively test our new operational safety measures.
“We will continue to review this and will invite walk-in customers into our shops only when we can be confident of doing so in the controlled manner we intended.”
Greggs refused to predict when exactly branches would be open to customers but did indicate that they were keen to allow customers in as soon as possible.
This could mean Greggs doors may be open for customers within days of the start of the two week 20-store trial.
If the trial is successful, Greggs hopes to open roughly 700 shops from the 8th June and then re-open all stores by the 1st July when the government’s job retention scheme is due to come to an end.
But nothing is certain in this bizarre time and Greggs’ plans could change depending on any future announcements made by the government.
