A DORCHESTER pub is offering punters the chance to dine out for just a pound.

The Victoria Hotel is trying to bring some cheer to recession-hit customers with cut-price deals on a range of lunchtime and evening meals.

Publicans Emma Fergusson and Rick Green are hoping the move will bring in more trade as well as offering a cheap deal for people struggling in the current economic climate.

Miss Fergusson said: “Other publicans are doing it around the country but to our knowledge nobody else is doing it around here so we thought we would give it a go.

“With the recession, everybody is looking for cheap deals so we sat down with our chef and put together a menu of meals for a pound.”

The £1 delights on offer include lasagne, pasta bake, gammon steak and chips and Cajun chicken salad.

Desserts such as homemade bread and butter pudding and chocolate fudge brownie are also available for a quid.

The menu will running alongside the current menu at the Dagmar Road pub from Monday to Saturday from 12 noon to 2pm and on selected evenings for the foreseeable future.

The only condition is that each person eating buys a drink.

Miss Fergusson insists the pub can afford to charge such a low price for the meals and expects it to be a win-win situation.

She said: “I’m hoping it will induce more customers and people will get a cheaper deal.

“We can afford them for a pound and in the current climate everybody wants everything cheaper.”

Miss Fergusson said they did consider following the examples of pub chain JD Wetherspoon and the Number 6 bar in Weymouth, which introduced £1 drinks offers at the start of the year.

However, she said her and Mr Green decided on focusing their offer on food because they were expecting the tax increase on alcohol and they did not want to promote irresponsible drinking.

She said: “With the budget we knew prices of alcohol were going up and we are trying to combat that hike in prices by bringing food prices down.

“We also try not to encourage binge drinking and the problems that causes.”