This is Hull and East Riding --Restaurants in Hull's St Stephen's shopping centre were forced to shut temporarily on one of the year's busiest shopping days. Yesterday, a pump in the water system broke down, meaning the was no running water on the first floor.
As a result, it would have been against health and safety regulations for cafés and restaurants in the main food hall to continue serving food.
The centre was also forced to shut its toilets on the first floor.
However, restaurants on the ground floor could continue serving as normal.
Jim Harris, manager of St Stephen's, said: "It's just one of those things. All we can do in these situations is let everyone know what is happening. People understand that these things happen."
The pump broke at about 11.30am.
A maintenance team was onsite within 15 minutes and, half an hour later, they had fixed the problem.
By 12.20pm, everything was back to normal.
Matthew Gant, manager of the Nando's branch in St Stephen's, pictured, said: "It's the busiest shopping day of the year, so we were hit but we were back open after an hour and a half. As soon as we opened the doors, customers flooded in, we were full within 20 minutes.
"The St Stephen's team kept us informed and told us straight away when we were allowed to open again. It was the best of a bad situation, really."
*• Business news for Hull and East Yorkshire* Reported by This is 1 day ago.
