Seats Bistro, in Tettenhall, Wolverhampton, is thriving after launching its Ourlocal.uk e-commerce site for customers to order gourmet burgers and Sunday roast dinners.

Tom Robinson, owner of Seats restaurant, said offering click and collect had helped takeaway sales rise to more than half that of a normal week of being open full time.

Seats – a 30-seat restaurant – is part of Robinson’s Butchers which was first established in Wolverhampton in 1905. Tom, a fourth generation butcher, has been a chef at hotels in Wales and Australia, and at ski chalets in the Alps. He has also run a street food business from a converted horsebox. The company employs a team of around 20 across the butchers and bistro.

Tom said: “During the first lockdown we closed down and completely refurbished the restaurant. When the second lockdown started we decided we wanted to offer a takeaway service showcasing our great restaurant quality meals.

“We are focusing on gourmet burgers and roast dinners purely as takeaways. We started taking orders with a pen and paper ordering system, which got very confusing. We looked for an online ordering system but some are very expensive and have high commission rates and other catches.

“We tried one system and it had fault after fault and, by the end of the week, I was in tears because it just wasn’t working and was actually adding to the workload.

“Then I was told about Ourlocal.uk. I wrote down all the problems I had and then Russ James contacted me and set everything up. They came out to meet us and set up our system and printer, which allows us to print out all the orders. The whole thing took just two days. The speed and efficiency is amazing.”

He added: “It is seamless and the support we have been given is much more personal than the other systems. First impressions are that it is great.”