Why are Morrisons and Sainsbury’s cafes closing?

It is Friday lunchtime at a Morrisons in Queensbury, north-west London, and the in-store cafe is busy.

At one desk, an adolescent tucks right into a ham sandwich whereas on the cellphone with a good friend. She stays for properly over half an hour.

At one other, an aged couple chat over a sizzling meal, whereas queue of shoppers steadily kinds on the until.

However that is one in all 52 cafes set to shut – together with others in London, Leeds, Portsmouth and Glasgow – introduced this week in a cost-cutting drive that the grocery store chain says is designed to “renew and reinvigorate Morrisons” and focus “funding into the areas that prospects actually worth”.

That got here two months after Sainsbury’s stated it was closing all 61 of its grocery store cafes.

Whereas some see the decline of grocery store cafes as inevitable, buyers across the nation have advised BBC Information that these cafes give them an inexpensive, handy and welcoming place to get a heat meal whereas catching up with pals.

Regulars on the Morrisons cafe in Queensbury say they’re stunned – and saddened – to listen to it is closing.

Philomena Hughes, 76, is having a meal with two pals, having simply been purchasing. The trio have ran into a pair they know on the cafe, who transfer over to the desk subsequent to them and be part of of their dialog.

Philomena says she’s “livid” concerning the closure. “Morrisons was actually the one place I’d come,” she says. “We meet folks we all know in right here.”

Different regulars on the cafe inform the BBC that the standard is nice, costs are low, and it is handy to seize groceries beforehand. They level to provides corresponding to a free children meal with an grownup’s one, free parking, and fish and chips with mushy peas for £8.50.

Morrisons says 344 of its cafes will stay open regardless of the deliberate closures however, in line with its chief government Rami Baitiéh, “a minority have particular native challenges and in these areas, regrettably, closure and re-allocation of the area is the one smart choice”.

Elsewhere within the nation, Ben Hopkins, 32, feels his native Morrisons cafe in Meltham, West Yorkshire, is bustling each time he goes as a result of “the meals is typical of that you just’d get in a conventional greasy spoon”.

It might turn out to be useful for folks, too. Lisa Clavering, from St Albans, says she relied on Asda and Morrisons cafes for a “fast and low cost sizzling lunch” when her two sons had been youthful.

“As they grew, it was someplace we might go collectively and share a meal with out the stress of cooking it and cleansing up, the place I did not really feel judged by different prospects in the event that they made a noise,” the 42-year-old says.

Lisa says a part of the enchantment of a grocery store cafe is that they really feel accessible and a “heat and welcoming place with no fuss and no surprises”.

“I do fear that when they go, there’s not likely a like-for-like to exchange them, and different options are sometimes rather more costly,” Lisa says.

However different folks query the necessity for grocery store cafes, pointing to modifications in folks’s purchasing habits and the rising competitors from high-street espresso chains.

The closure of Morrisons cafes “ought to come as no shock”, retail analyst Natalie Berg tells the BBC. “The grocers are desperately attempting to navigate important price headwinds, whereas concurrently competing with discounters like Aldi and Lidl,” she says.

“It is a low-margin business, so supermarkets have to be completely ruthless in terms of cost-cutting.”

When buyers come into bigger supermarkets, they “need low costs they usually desire a frictionless expertise. In-store cafes work in sure areas, however they’re merely not important for many shops,” Ms Berg says.

It largely echoes the reasoning Sainsbury’s has given for its closures – that “the vast majority of [its] most loyal buyers don’t use the cafes frequently”.

Ben Tinca, 19, a scholar residing close to the Morrisons retailer in Queensbury, says he often meets his pals at fast-food chains like Nando’s, KFC and McDonald’s.

He is solely ever been to a Morrisons cafe as soon as. “You often solely see older folks consuming there,” he says.

And again on the Queensbury retailer, Snehal Khimani does not suppose folks care an excessive amount of about grocery store cafes closing, saying there was no “outrage”.

“If it was common, you’d hear about it,” like when Pret A Manger modified its subscription service, he says.

And in addition to, rival grocery store chains Tesco and Marks & Spencer – which have greater than 300 cafes every – have not stated something about closing their cafes.

M&S tells the BBC that it is persevering with to put money into its cafes and plans to have espresso retailers within the majority of its larger shops. Final yr, it introduced it could attempt providing extra takeaway food and drinks to draw youthful prospects.

At an M&S Cafe in central London that the BBC visited, Matthew Wilsher has simply obtained a cappuccino to go.

For the 62-year-old, the numbers do not lie. His espresso price £3.40, and would been much less if he’d remembered his reusable cup. For him, “that is cheaper than a Pret or a Starbucks,” he says.

Extra reporting by Charlotte Edwards and Faarea Masud.