Saturday is normally the day restaurants want every table filled, every order coming in and the tills at their busiest.
But this weekend, the busier one Leeds restaurant gets, the more it hopes families thousands of miles away will benefit.
Bison Steakhouse in Beeston, Leeds is turning Saturday, 29 August, into a Day of Giving, pledging the revenue takings from food sold during the day to help support orphans and widows in Syria.
And rather than choosing a quieter trading day for the initiative, the restaurant has deliberately chosen Saturday, its busiest day of the week, in the hope that it can raise as much money as possible.
It means customers wanting to support the initiative don’t necessarily have to do anything more complicated than sit down, order their food and enjoy a meal.
The more people who turn up and eat, the more the restaurant hopes it can give.
The initiative comes as communities in Syria continue to live with the consequences of years of conflict, with families who have lost loved ones among those facing the difficult task of rebuilding their lives.
For Bison, the Day of Giving is an opportunity to use an ordinary day of business to do something extraordinary for people facing circumstances far removed from those sitting around its tables in Leeds.
While charity fundraising by businesses is nothing new, the decision to hold the initiative on its busiest trading day is significant.
Saturday would ordinarily be one of the most commercially important days of the week for a restaurant.
Instead, Bison wants the success of this particular Saturday to be measured not simply by how much comes through the tills, but by how much those takings can ultimately help others.
It also puts customers at the centre of the fundraising effort.
Rather than simply being asked to put money into a collection or make a separate donation, people can contribute through something they may already have been planning to do, go out for something to eat.
For customers, doing their bit could be as simple as ordering dinner.
And if families and friends choose to fill the restaurant because they know where Saturday’s food takings are going, an individual meal becomes part of a much bigger collective effort.
The Day of Giving also comes at a time when many communities across Britain continue to look for ways to respond to humanitarian crises overseas, particularly when the scale of suffering can sometimes leave individuals wondering what difference they personally can make.
Initiatives such as this offer one answer: communities acting collectively.
One meal may feel small. A restaurant full of people eating throughout an entire Saturday could become something considerably bigger.
It is also why Bison is hoping customers will turn out in numbers.
The restaurant has already begun spreading the message about the Day of Giving, but ultimately the amount raised will depend on how busy people can make it.
There is something particularly poignant about that idea.
On most Saturdays, a queue outside a restaurant is a sign that business is good.
This Saturday, every extra table filled, every family that walks through the door and every additional food order will represent something more.
It will mean the potential to send more help to widows and children trying to rebuild lives affected by years of war.
For one day at least, the relationship between restaurant and customer changes too.
Bison provides the food and gives up the revenue from those sales.
Customers provide the appetite and, simply by turning up, help determine how big that contribution becomes.
The final total will only become clear once Saturday’s trading is over.
But perhaps that is what makes the initiative interesting.
The success of Bison’s Day of Giving is now partly in the hands of the people of Leeds.
The more they eat, the more Bison gives.
