Why are Morrisons and Sainsbury’s cafes closing? | EUROtoday

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

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

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

But 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 “investment into the areas that customers really value”.

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

While some see the decline of grocery store cafes as inevitable, consumers across the nation have instructed BBC News that these cafes give them an affordable, handy and welcoming place to get a heat meal whereas catching up with buddies.

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

Philomena Hughes, 76, is having a meal with two buddies, 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 “furious” concerning the closure. “Morrisons was really the only place I would come,” she says. “We meet people we know in here.”

Other regulars on the cafe inform the BBC that the standard is sweet, costs are lowand it is handy to seize groceries beforehand. They level to provides equivalent to a free youngsters 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 response to its chief government Rami Baitiéh, “a minority have specific local challenges and in those locations, regrettably, closure and re-allocation of the space is the only sensible option”.

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 food is typical of that you’d get in a traditional greasy spoon”.

It can come in useful for fogeys, too. Lisa Clavering, from St Albans, says she relied on Asda and Morrisons cafes for a “quick and cheap hot lunch” when her two sons have been youthful.

“As they grew, it was somewhere we could go together and share a meal without the stress of cooking it and cleaning up, where I didn’t feel judged by other customers if they made a noise,” the 42-year-old says.

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

“I do worry that once they go, there’s not really a like-for-like to replace them, and other alternatives are typically much more expensive,” Lisa says.

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

The closure of Morrisons cafes “should come as no surprise”, retail analyst Natalie Berg tells the BBC. “The grocers are desperately trying to navigate significant cost headwinds, while simultaneously competing with discounters like Aldi and Lidl,” she says.

“This is a low-margin industry, so supermarkets need to be utterly ruthless when it comes to cost-cutting.”

When consumers come into bigger supermarkets, they “want low prices and they want a frictionless experience. In-store cafes work in certain locations, but they’re simply not essential for most stores,” Ms Berg says.

It largely echoes the reasoning Sainsbury’s has given for its closures – that “the majority of [its] most loyal shoppers do not use the cafes regularly”.

Ben Tinca, 19, a pupil dwelling close to the Morrisons retailer in Queensbury, says he normally meets his buddies at fast-food chains like Nando’s, KFC and McDonald’s.

He’s solely ever been to a Morrisons cafe as soon as. “You usually only see older people eating 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 popular, you’d hear about it,” like when Pret A Manger modified its subscription service, he says.

And moreover, 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. Last 12 months, it introduced it might strive providing extra takeaway foods and drinks to draw youthful prospects.

At an M&S Cafe in central London that the BBC visited, Matthew Wilsher has simply received 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’s cheaper than a Pret or a Starbucks,” he says.

Additional reporting by Charlotte Edwards and Faarea Masud.