Greggs has revealed it has now put its plans to reopen branches in the UK on hold.
Instead, the bakery chain will now conduct a trial ‘behind closed doors’ instead, similar to McDonald’s.
Greggs had announced it would open 20 branches in and around Newcastle as a test of its new social distancing measures ahead of reopening across the country.
But now it fears there could be huge queues and has changed its plans, reports Wales Online.
A spokesman for Greggs said: "Due to significant interest in our 20-shop trial, and the risk that excessive numbers of customers may plan to visit Greggs, we will now initially operate these trials behind closed doors in order to effectively test our new operational safety measures.
"We will continue to review this and will invite walk-in customers into our shops only when we can be confident of doing so in the controlled manner we intended."
All of Greggs' shops have been closed since March 24 when the UK went on coronavirus lockdown even though the government allowed takeaway outlets to stay open.
Greggs had hoped that if feedback was positive from the trial it could move to phase two with 700 shops reopening.
It had cautioned that phase two would only be possible if the government had taken a first step in relaxing the lockdown which could be to reopen schools, allowing more people to return to work.
The news comes after B&Q opened all of its UK branches but saw thousands of people queuing for hours to get into stores in the first weekend.
McDonald's has also said it won't reopen until it is safe to do so and is testing measures behind closed doors.
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