Take a look inside refurbished Peterborough tea rooms

Hannah Spence and Andy Jones, who run the venue on The Embankment, want to share the new look with customers, but appreciate safety for all has to be a priority.

“We cannot wait to re open our doors and we are currently working on what capacity that may be in. Hopefully the announcement on Monday will give us a more concrete timeline and what to expect,” said Hannah. “We opened, closed and changed the way we operated nine times last year before we decided to close on Christmas Eve as new regulations and restrictions were put in place.

“Our main priority has always been to keep our staff and customers safe and to respect the work of the NHS so closing was the way to do this. We thank our customers for their understanding.”

Looking ahead to the Monday announcement, and what that might bring - with outside-only opening mentioned as a possibility - she added: “We have a beautiful view and lots of outside space so we are keen to utilise this and offer more outside seating areas, our creative juices are flowing...

“Our new menus are full of yummy breakfasts, pick your own afternoon tea (you choose everything), our delicious chalkboard grazing platters and a brand new drinks menu!”

A repeat of last summer’s Eat Out To Help Out scheme has also been suggested to help the hard-hit hospitality industry recover.

“It would be great for customers to have the incentive to eat out with some kind of discount, covered by the government, which they could use throughout the week rather than limited to just three days,” added Hannah. “This may work a bit better than squeezing all the customers for the whole week into the beginning of the week.

“We did undertake a beautiful refurbishment during the November lockdown and look forward to our customers being able to enjoy this in the coming months. We look forward to announcing our opening date soon!”