According to Peter Eyles, chairman of the gastropub chain Cross Oak Inns, the only certainty about recent trading is the uncertainty. Mr Eyles, who has four pub-restaurants in Surrey, Kent and Buckinghamshire, said that trading had recently become “incredibly volatile”.

“There's absolutely no pattern to it. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are as strong as ever, but the rest of the week you have no idea,” he said. “It used to start on a Monday and gradually built up through the week, but now trade is all over the shop. You can be quiet on a Monday then crammed on Tuesday.”

He said that while some customers were trading down from formal restaurants, leading to strong Christmas bookings for the group, underlying sales were down. “On October 1, it was as though somebody had put the brakes on. Until then we were on a par with last year, but since October we've been off almost 10 per cent on a like-for-like basis. Spend per head hasn't changed much, just frequency of visit. Instead of coming out three times, people are coming out twice.”

Rupert Clevely, boss of Geronimo Inns, a chain of 22 gastropubs in London and the South East, said that 2008 had been “a fabulous year”, but after “an appalling November” he is in no doubt about where the priority lies. “January and February could be very tough and it'll be all about conserving cash. I'm less concerned with profit and loss. I don't want to borrow more money from the bank.”

He said that Geronimo had lifted like-for-like sales by 7 per cent this year, but that had softened since October. Like Cross Oak, Geronimo has strong Christmas bookings. “The other day we had a table of 20 Japanese businessmen in suits at the Builders Arms [in Chelsea]. We've never had one Japanese customer before, let alone twenty.”

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