Arbuckles closes restaurants in Downham Market and Ely for remainder of week

Restaurant business Arbuckles, which has sites at Downham and Ely, was forced to close its doors on Tuesday.

In an announcement on its Facebook page it said the business had been forced to make the very difficult call to close the restaurants for the rest of this week, at the very least.

It said: "Our number one priority is to protect our staff and customers from this unprecedented emergency that is heading our way. We are donating food stocks to local charities and staff.

"Arbuckles is in a very strong position to get through this horrible situation and our thoughts go out to those businesses that are not so lucky.

"As we get time to sort out our immediate issues as a company, we will try to play a strong part in our local communities' effort against this virus. We will do our utmost help protect the vulnerable people within our areas."

"Stay safe and well and remember this will pass if we all play our difficult role and please don’t underestimate what is going on around us."

It said it would be monitoring the ongoing situation and make decisions accordingly. It will continue to use Facebook as its main method of communicating.