Award winning restaurant offering triple discount ‘to say thank-you’

OFFER: Mukesh Tirkoti, managing partner at Tapasya @ Marina

A multi-award winning Hull restaurant is offering customers a triple discount as a ‘thank-you’ for helping it rebuild business after lockdown.

Tapasya @ Marina will continue the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme launched by the government last month at its own cost. The restaurant will also offer a discount on beer, and it will permanently scrap the service charge which has been in operation until now.

Tapan Mahapatra, director of Tapasya restaurants, said: “We took part in the government’s scheme throughout August and the restaurant was very busy, and not just on the days when the offer was available. We were not able to accommodate all our guests because of the high demand and with limited capacity due to social distancing measures that are in place.

“When it ended on August 31 we decided we would stand the cost of continuing the offer because things are still very difficult for many people. Money is tight and if we can do something to help them it will also help our own business.”

The new offer, which will run across lunch and dinner service, will be available at Tapasya @ Marina from Monday to Wednesday every week until the end of September.

The terms are the same as for the Eat Out to Help Out deal, with a 50 per cent discount available on all food and soft drinks up to £10 per person, and the restaurant has now added a beer deal with a buy-one-get-one-free offer on Cobra lager.

Mukesh Tirkoti, managing partner at the restaurant, said: “We’ve been running Indian restaurants in Hull for seven years now and we know many of our guests enjoy a beer with their curry, so we are delighted to partner with Cobra to offer another saving. In common with many other restaurants it has been our policy in the past to operate a 10 per cent service charge but we have now dropped this, with guests able to make their own decisions on tips.”

Tapasya opened its first restaurant in Beverley Road, Hull, in 2013 and expanded to open Tapasya @ Marina in November 2016. The new restaurant was acclaimed as the best in the region in the Remarkable East Yorkshire Tourism Awards (REYTAs) for 2019 and followed that by achieving national recognition with a place in the Michelin Guide for 2020.

Tapasya @ Marina is the only venue in Hull to earn a Michelin Plate listing – and one of only two Indian restaurants in the whole of Yorkshire – which is awarded to the best non-starred restaurants in the guide.

Mukesh said: “We have impressed the REYTAs judges and the Michelin inspectors with the quality of our food and we are offering the discounts to reward our regular customers and attract newcomers who maybe took up the government’s offer at other restaurants.

“We have made changes to the layout of the restaurant and created more space to enable people to dine in safety and we do expect to be busy so would urge people to book in advance.”