Whether it's due to a limited capacity, or customers being frustrated with mask rules, they say it means fewer people are coming through the doors. But there is another government program trying to counteract that.

The Dine and Discover vouchers were a hit last year and in 2020, encouraging people to get out of the house and spend money at hospitality and entertainment venues. They were so successful, the government reintroduced them.

In Tamworth more than $3.2 million has been spent by people using the vouchers, and one of the biggest winners - and supporters - of the program has been Tamworth Tenpins.

"It's definitely helped, and we ask a lot of people as well," centre manager Joanne Robinson said.

"We have a lot of people who have forgotten they've got them, and then we ask them and it jogs their memories so that's beneficial to us."

She said that has helped them maintain the rage from last year, with very little drop off in use between the old batch of vouchers to the new ones.

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The spend on discover vouchers have also been high in Tamworth, with the average cost of a purchase while using them sitting at $55.04.

That's comfortably higher than other local government areas around the region, with Gunnedah ($35.51), Liverpool Plains ($30.28) and Armidale ($27.03) trailing behind.

Tamworth also boasts the largest overall spend, with the other areas combined reaching a total of just over $1.6 million - around half that of Tamworth's.

Despite the positivity around the impact of the vouchers, Ms Robinson said the restrictions have put a dampener on things, and next month could be a tough one.

"It definitely has an effect from a staff point of view, you have to put extra staff on to accommodate cleaning," she said.

"But we've found we're not as busy as we were pre-restrictions, people did come in a lot more, the masks do I think turn a lot of people away.

"And the cases in Tamworth as well, as the cases increase we notice you get not as many people come through, but when they go down a little people start to venture out again.

"We've been a bit lucky with school holidays, but I'm not expecting a very good February, especially now with the restrictions and kids going back to school."

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