by Alastair Campbell
Greene King's pub furniture faced double demand over the Easter weekend, as the pub chain served a record-breaking number of diners during the four days from Good Friday to Easter Monday.
The latest figures from the company reveal that 700,000 meals were served in Greene King establishments, a 5.2% increase over the previous year.
In turn, this drove sales value growth of 7.1%, leading chief executive officer Rooney Anand to term Easter "particularly strong this year".
Despite the difficult weather conditions throughout early 2013, the company now expects to meet its expected performance for the full year - and food sales clearly play an important part in that.
Mr Anand said: "Alongside strong underlying growth, we have made further strategic progress, adding an expected 33 new Retail sites during the year, taking the Retail estate to 987 sites by the year end."
Greene King's Retail business comprises pubs, restaurants and hotels, including brands such as Hungry Horse and Loch Fyne.
Visit any one of these and you're likely to find yourself surrounded not by pub furniture, but by a more restaurant-like setting.
However, Greene King Retail also includes the Local Pubs division, community and high-street drinking establishments where more traditional pub furniture is likely to be installed.
Overall, in the 51 weeks to April 21st 2013, Greene King saw like-for-like sales growth of 2.2% in its retail sales, 2.7% increase in LFL food sales and 3.1% growth in LFL room sales.
Its partner pubs - tenanted, franchised and leased Green King venues - saw average earnings increases of 4.6% 48 weeks into the reporting period.
Many of these could soon require investment of their own into pub furniture and other fixtures, particularly if they are among the partner pubs that are due to be culled from the Greene King stable in the coming months.
The Pub Partners estate has already reduced in size by 108 sites from its start-of-year size, taking it to 1,272 individual pubs.
According to Greene King, this is partly in response to concerns about how well managers are treated within such franchise structures - but for those who find themselves taken out of the brand, it could demand some renovation and refurbishment to help give pubs an identity of their own.