Free pub meal? He'll flip you for it

They say there's no such thing as a free lunch. But a pub in Dorset is giving customers a chance to disprove the old adage with a toss of a coin. On Tuesdays, visitors to the White Hart pub in Bishops Caundle, near Sherborne, are given a 50-50 chance of getting away with a free meal. After polishing off their meal a coin is tossed. If it falls on heads their dinner is free, but they have to pay if it lands on tails. Landlord James Curran copied the initiative from bars in Australia, where a coin is tossed to see if drinkers get a free shot with their beer. He thought offering free drinks was not a good idea so opted to put his pub grub up for grabs. Curran said that so far on "Toss-Up Tuesdays" there had been an even split between people who had to pay and those who left with a free meal. But there had been some "hairy moments" when it looked as if the pub was going to take a hefty hit. He said he had thought of offering two meals for the price of one, as many pubs did, but decided it would be more fun to let "fate" decide if his patrons got a free meal or not. The recession has prompted such imaginative initiatives across the country. Last year Oriental Aroma, a Chinese restaurant in Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, offered diners a free lunch – and gave them £1 when they left. The proviso there was that they had to buy their own drinks. It brought in good money from customers' bar bills as well as attracting national headlines.