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M&S to Close 14 In-Store Cafés Across the UK in 2026 · Stories Today

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  Speaker 1: The high street giant is trimming a small slice of
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  Speaker 1: its hospitality estate this year. Marks and Spencer will close
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  Speaker 1: fourteen in store cafes in twenty twenty six, hitting thirteen
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  Speaker 1: sites in England and one in Scotland. The space is
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  Speaker 1: being handed over to food and every day products and
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  Speaker 1: no jobs are being lost. The move forms part of
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  Speaker 1: a wider store restructuring plan. M and S says the
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  Speaker 1: aim is to provide more product choice and improve the
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  Speaker 1: shopping experience. Some have already served their last brew key points.
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  Speaker 1: Fourteen cafes are shutting thirteen English sites and one in Scotland.
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  Speaker 1: That is roughly four percent of the retailers three hundred
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  Speaker 1: sixteen food locations. M and S operates over three hundred cafes,
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  Speaker 1: coffee shops and coffee to go kiosks. Staff are being redeployed,
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  Speaker 1: not made redundant. The space becomes fresh produce and wider
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  Speaker 1: food ranges. It sits inside a three hundred million pounds
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  Speaker 1: plan for four hundred twenty food halls by twenty twenty eight.
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  Speaker 1: Why Marks and Spencer will close fourteen in store cafes
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  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six. Small food stores have limited floor space.
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  Speaker 1: A cafe table uses room that could hold fresh produce
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  Speaker 1: or ready meals. The barn Road Cafe in Congleton, Cheshire
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  Speaker 1: was one of the first to go. As reported by
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  Speaker 1: The Mirror, Customer feedback also shows strong demand for a
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  Speaker 1: wider M and S range. Regional manager Katie Wellen explain
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  Speaker 1: the thinking. She said, after reviewing our Congleton store, we
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  Speaker 1: are repurposing the cafe space in store to provide more
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  Speaker 1: product choice and improve the shopping experience. We understand this
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  Speaker 1: will be disappointing news for some of our customers. However,
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  Speaker 1: our teams will continue working hard to serve them in store.
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  Speaker 1: What shoppers are losing. M and S cafes serve coffee,
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  Speaker 1: sandwiches and hot meals. They also run daily deals for
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  Speaker 1: families and older shoppers, a ten percent senior discount for
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  Speaker 1: over sixties, a children's menu at four pounds and fifty pence,
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  Speaker 1: and a free slice of cake for parents in the mornings.
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  Speaker 1: What m INS has said about staff and space, no
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  Speaker 1: redundancies are planned. Cafe workers are moving to other roles
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  Speaker 1: inside the business, an M and S spokesperson told Metro
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  Speaker 1: last October. As we look to modernize our food business
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  Speaker 1: and offer the best of M and S food to
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  Speaker 1: more people more often. We're investing in our store a
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  Speaker 1: State to give our customers the widest possible product range.
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  Speaker 1: This includes opening brand new coffee shops offering delicious food
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  Speaker 1: and Barista made fair trade coffee, including at our brand
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  Speaker 1: new Bristol Cabot Circus store. So this move is a reshuffle,
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  Speaker 1: not the end of coffee at M and S. The
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  Speaker 1: three hundred million pounds food haul push. M and S
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  Speaker 1: is spending three hundred million pounds to grow its food
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  Speaker 1: hall a State to four hundred twenty sites by the
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  Speaker 1: end of twenty twenty eight. An earlier statement reported by
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  Speaker 1: Time Out in August twenty twenty five put the figure
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  Speaker 1: at eleven small food stores. It has since risen to fourteen.
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  Speaker 1: The affected cafes all sit in smaller food shops, not
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  Speaker 1: the larger, full line branches where cafes remain popular. How
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  Speaker 1: customers have reacted, The response has been blunt. One shopper wrote,
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  Speaker 1: nearly always used to do our shopping then go to
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  Speaker 1: the cafe. Staff reckon they've lost customers because of the
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  Speaker 1: cafe closing. Another added, they have closed the cafe in
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  Speaker 1: my local store and used the space to make a
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  Speaker 1: self checkout area. Hate it why supermarket cafes are struggling.
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  Speaker 1: M and S is not alone. Sainsbury's shut all its
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  Speaker 1: remaining in store cafes and Morrison's closed fifty one of
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  Speaker 1: its own. Emily Keyogg, founder of the pr agency Palm,
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  Speaker 1: believes habits have shifted. She said the traditional in store
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  Speaker 1: cafe was functional a place to pause during a shop,
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  Speaker 1: but as so much retail has moved online, people are
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  Speaker 1: browsing less in store. This means every choice they make
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  Speaker 1: about hospitality brands when shopping is now less functional and
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  Speaker 1: far more considered, aligning with the broader change in consumer
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  Speaker 1: mindset when it comes to physical shopping. Paul McHugh, head
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: of Sales em EA at Ericsson, pointed to technology. He warned, Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: many retailers are struggling to effectively deploy these technology solutions
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  Speaker 1: due to connectivity issues the wider backdrop. A cyber attack
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  Speaker 1: last year saw hackers take some customer data online orders
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  Speaker 1: and click and Collect stopped for nearly two months. M
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  Speaker 1: and S put the cost at about three hundred million
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  Speaker 1: pounds within sh durance covering part of it. The chain
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  Speaker 1: also confirmed the closure of its underperforming Swansea branch. Elsewhere
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  Speaker 1: on the high Street, New Look and the original Factory
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  Speaker 1: Shop are shutting sites too,