BBC
Philomena says she’s “livid” in regards to the closure of the Morrisons cafe in Queensbury
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 whilst at the telephone with a pal. She remains for neatly over part an hour.
At any other, an aged couple chat over a scorching meal, whilst a queue of consumers regularly paperwork on the until.
However that is considered one of 52 cafes set to near – together with others in London, Leeds, Portsmouth and Glasgow – introduced this week in a cost-cutting force that the grocery store chain says is designed to “renew and reinvigorate Morrisons” and center of attention “funding into the spaces that consumers in point of fact price”.
That got here two months after Sainsbury’s stated it was once last all 61 of its grocery store cafes.
Whilst some see the decline of grocery store cafes as inevitable, customers across the nation have informed BBC Information that those cafes give them an affordable, handy and inviting position to get a heat meal whilst catching up with buddies.
‘Percentage a meal with out the strain of cooking’
Regulars on the Morrisons cafe in Queensbury say they are stunned – and saddened – to listen to it is last.
Philomena Hughes, 76, is having a meal with two buddies, having simply been buying groceries. The trio have ran into a pair they know on the cafe, who transfer over to the desk subsequent to them and sign up for of their dialog.
Philomena says she’s “livid” in regards to the closure. “Morrisons was once in point of fact the one position I might come,” she says. “We meet other folks we all know in right here.”
Different regulars on the cafe inform the BBC that the standard is excellent, costs are low, and it is handy to clutch groceries previously. They level to provides comparable to a unfastened youngsters meal with an grownup’s one, unfastened parking, and fish and chips with soft peas for £8.50.
Morrisons says 344 of its cafes will stay open in spite of the deliberate closures however, in keeping with its leader government Rami Baitiéh, “a minority have particular native demanding situations and in the ones places, regrettably, closure and re-allocation of the gap is the one good choice”.
Somewhere else within the nation, Ben Hopkins, 32, feels his native Morrisons cafe in Meltham, West Yorkshire, is bustling each and every time he is going as a result of “the meals is standard of that you would get in a conventional greasy spoon”.
Such retailers can turn out to be useful for folks, too. Lisa Clavering, from St Albans, says she depended on Asda and Morrisons cafes for a “fast and inexpensive scorching lunch” when her two sons had been more youthful.
“As they grew, it was once someplace lets cross in combination and percentage a meal with out the strain of cooking it and cleansing up, the place I did not really feel judged by means of different shoppers in the event that they made a noise,” the 42-year-old says.
Lisa Clavering
Lisa Clavering, 42, says she depended on grocery store cafes for a “fast and inexpensive scorching lunch” when her two sons had been more youthful
Lisa says a part of the enchantment of grocery store cafes is they really feel obtainable – a “heat and inviting position with out a fuss and no surprises”.
“I do concern that when they cross, there is now not in point of fact a like-for-like to interchange them, and different possible choices are usually a lot more dear,” Lisa says.
‘Must come as no marvel’
However folks query the will for grocery store cafes, pointing to adjustments in other folks’s buying groceries behavior and the rising pageant from high-street espresso chains.
The closure of Morrisons cafes “will have to come as no marvel,” retail analyst Natalie Berg tells the BBC.
“The grocers are desperately looking to navigate important charge headwinds, whilst concurrently competing with discounters like Aldi and Lidl.
“It is a low-margin trade, so supermarkets want to be totally ruthless in relation to cost-cutting.”
When customers come into greater supermarkets, they “need low costs and they would like a frictionless revel in. In-store cafes paintings in sure places, however they are merely now not crucial for many shops,” Ms Berg says.
It in large part echoes the reasoning Sainsbury’s has given for its closures – that “the vast majority of [its] maximum unswerving customers don’t use the cafes ceaselessly”.
Ben Tinca, 19, a scholar dwelling close to the Morrisons shop in Queensbury, says he normally meets his buddies at fast-food chains like Nando’s, KFC and McDonald’s.
He is handiest ever been to a Morrisons cafe as soon as. “You normally handiest see older other folks consuming there,” he says.
Ben Tinca says he normally meets his buddies at fast-food chains, now not grocery store cafes
And again on the Queensbury shop, Snehal Khimani does not suppose other folks care an excessive amount of about grocery store cafes last, pronouncing there was no “outrage”.
“If it was once common, you’ll listen about it,” like when Pret A Manger modified its subscription carrier, he says.
And but even so, rival grocery store chains Tesco and Marks & Spencer – that have greater than 300 cafes each and every – have not stated the rest about last their cafes.
M&S tells the BBC that it is proceeding to put money into its cafes and plans to have espresso retail outlets within the majority of its larger shops. Final 12 months, it introduced it could take a look at providing extra takeaway foods and drinks to draw more youthful shoppers.
At an M&S Cafe in central London that the BBC visited, Matthew Wilsher has simply were given a cappuccino to move.
For the 62-year-old, the numbers do not lie. His espresso charge £3.40, and would had been much less if he’d remembered his reusable cup. For him, “that is inexpensive than a Pret or a Starbucks,” he says.
Further reporting by means of Charlotte Edwards and Faarea Masud.
