Despite it being a successful scheme, Lucy sees it as a way to raise awareness of individual artists rather than as a method of gaining serious numbers of sales. Works can also be bought from the Dot Art website and she also sells them through developers and interior designers.
Lucy adds: "I'm not sure using restaurants is necessarily the best way to sell art. It's a good way to make people aware of art and thinking about it a bit more and maybe then going away and buying it from somewhere else. It's more about getting artists a bit more exposure."
Ken Martin, owner of the View Two commercial art gallery in Liverpool's Mathew Street, also loans paintings to restaurants. He agrees that it is a good way of improving awareness of particular artists.
He says: "The more awareness there is of good paintings the better but I don't think there's any replacement for a gallery.
"People come in here on a Saturday afternoon and have a glass of wine with me and talk about the sort of thing they're looking for."
However, Terry McShane, one of the first restaurateurs to sell art from walls of his establishment, believes it is a successful alternative to a gallery.
His desire to help support local artists began when he was working at the Number Seven bistro and gallery, in Liverpool, now The Quarter bar-restaurant where Terry is head chef and manager.
"I worked here many years ago and they used to have quite a few exhibitions. I was only about 16 and I just got drawn into it. I've grown to love art.
"We're quite fussy about what we put up because we do want to sell it.
"I think it's very important to keep changing the artwork every three months or so and keeping it to local artists because obviously Liverpool has got so many who want to do well," he says.
