‘It was always so busy’ cry customers as huge coffee chain with 2,000 branches abruptly closes ‘great’ shop
A HUGE coffee chain with 2,000 branches has abruptly closed a “great” shop and customers are devastated.
Costa Coffee branches across the country including in major cities like London, Nottingham and Sheffield.
But latte lovers in Haywards Heath in West Sussex will now need to find an alternative shop as the chain closed its shop in Sydney Road on June 20.
A sign appeared on the coffee shop’s window, which read: “This store is now closed. Thank you to all of our customers.”
Costa fans have shared their sadness over the decision to close the site on social media.
One said: “This one was always so busy.”
Another wrote: “Costa lotta too much.”
A third cried: “What is going on?”
While a fourth simply added: “So sad.”
In its Google reviews, the Costa branch was described as “great” with “warm and welcoming” staff.
A Costa Coffee spokesperson said: “Members of the team who worked at this store have been relocated to surrounding stores.
“You can find your nearest Costa Coffee store for your favourite handcrafted drink at 72 South Road, Haywards Heath, RH16 4LA.
“We’re sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused.”
It comes after Costa closed several other branches in recent months in a blow to coffee fans.
The chain, which currently runs more than 2,000 sites across the UK, closed its location in Chiswick, Hounslow, on February 6.
Costa Coffee on Edinburgh’s Bruntsfield Place served its last latte on February 14 too.
And it closed its branch in Erdington, a suburb of Birmingham, on March 3.
More recently, Costa closed its shop in Bayview Shopping Centre in Colwyn Bay.
On June 16, the branch served hot drinks and sweet treats for the final time.
Why are retailers closing shops?
EMPTY shops have become an eyesore on many British high streets and are often symbolic of a town centre’s decline.
The Sun’s business editor Ashley Armstrong explains why so many retailers are shutting their doors.
In many cases, retailers are shutting stores because they are no longer the money-makers they once were because of the rise of online shopping.
Falling store sales and rising staff costs have made it even more expensive for shops to stay open. In some cases, retailers are shutting a store and reopening a new shop at the other end of a high street to reflect how a town has changed.
The problem is that when a big shop closes, footfall falls across the local high street, which puts more shops at risk of closing.
Retail parks are increasingly popular with shoppers, who want to be able to get easy, free parking at a time when local councils have hiked parking charges in towns.
Many retailers including Next and Marks & Spencer have been shutting stores on the high street and taking bigger stores in better-performing retail parks instead.
Boss Stuart Machin recently said that when it relocated a tired store in Chesterfield to a new big store in a retail park half a mile away, its sales in the area rose by 103 per cent.
In some cases, stores have been shut when a retailer goes bust, as in the case of Wilko, Debenhams Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Paperchase to name a few.
What’s increasingly common is when a chain goes bust a rival retailer or private equity firm snaps up the intellectual property rights so they can own the brand and sell it online.
They may go on to open a handful of stores if there is customer demand, but there are rarely ever as many stores or in the same places.
RISE & GRIND
But it’s not all bad news for the coffee chain as it recently announced plans to open a string of branches as well.
In February, it said it would open 11 Costa sites in Sainsbury’s supermarkets across the year.
Sainsbury’s locations in Bristol, London and Surrey will all be serving up lattes and cappuccinos in the coming months.
The move builds on the coffee chain’s ongoing partnership with the supermarket giant with more than 1,000 Costa Express machines in its stores and petrol stations.
Plus, Costa has just reopened its first uplifted store in London, with hundreds more set to get a makeover too.
Unique features of the special revamp include touchscreen ordering systems to allow customers to order their favourite coffee on the go.
Through the screens, customers and select their favourite beverage, pastry, or cake and then collect it from the till.
The touchscreen ordering machines are similar to the ones at McDonald’s and KFC.
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