Full list of all the Marks And Spencer Uk cafe closures across the UK
Several store cafés operated by Marks And Spencer Uk are closing across the country, with a total of 14 cafés already closed or due to close shortly. The latest development—the closure and repurposing of the Congleton, Cheshire café space—underscores a wider reshaping of store formats that is affecting customers, colleagues and local retail footprints.
Marks And Spencer Uk: 14 cafés closed or closing
A total of 14 M&S cafés are already closed or are due to close shortly. The full list of M&S cafés that have closed or are set to close includes Hull Kingswood, East Riding of Yorkshire. The most recently announced closure is the M&S café in Congleton, Cheshire, where the café space will be re-purposed to provide alternative in-store use.
Congleton closure and the regional manager's explanation
Regional manager Katie Whelan said the move follows a review of the Congleton store and is intended to allow more product choice and to improve the shopping experience. She acknowledged customers may be disappointed but said teams will continue working hard to serve them in-store.
Kingswood and Anlaby: local impact, jobs and store moves
The M&S café at Kingswood Retail Park is one of the 14 named for closure. This follows the closure of the café at Anlaby Retail Park at the end of last year. The Food Hall at Anlaby has been shut for more than a month for a "refresh, " with the former café not returning. After closing on January 24, the Anlaby store is expected to reopen in March.
When asked about how closures would affect jobs, "colleagues will be redeployed to other roles across the foodhall. " Local customers have reacted emotionally: one regular said she and other café users were "greatly saddened" by the news, felt sorry for staff who were being moved into other roles, and noted the café had become a place for friends to meet. She added it is disabled friendly and caters for people with dietary restrictions.
Kingswood Retail Park redevelopment and longer-term plans
Planning documents indicate a new, larger M&S store at Kingswood Retail Park is expected to open in "Autumn/Winter 2027. " The new store will take part of a unit currently occupied by Matalan; the unit will be divided, with Matalan remaining on one side and M&S moving into the other. Planning material submitted to Hull City Council states the existing premises is too large for Matalan’s business model requirements, while the current M&S food store at Kingswood is too small to meet M&S’s business model requirements. There are no current business plans for a return to Hull city centre; the retailer was based in Whitefriargate until 2019.
Wider context: rival retailers and industry reshaping
These café closures form part of a broader pattern across the grocery and retail sector. Morrisons closed various cafés as part of a restructuring last year and also shut market kitchens, some Morrisons Daily convenience stores, florists, meat counters, fish counters and pharmacies. Sainsbury's also closed a number of its in-store cafés last year. Separately, retail updates include a major till change as Co-op introduces 'open all hours' checkouts in 150 stores; Tesco has introduced a new change to in-store cafés that shoppers think is "a great idea"; and Morrisons shoppers are set to pay for a previously free service in a change described as "very unfair".
Expansion ambitions and new-format store criteria
Despite café reductions, Marks And Spencer Uk is actively looking at hundreds of locations for new store openings. The company has compiled a potential location list covering 500 areas across the UK as part of planning activity in January. The firm is seeking "highly visible" and "accessible" sites capable of delivering trading space of 18, 000sqft (25, 000sqft gross).
Within the M25, the focus is on prominent sites with strong public transport links and steady weekday footfall, capable of delivering M&S Foodhalls with trading space between 6, 000–18, 000sqft (10, 000–25, 000sqft gross). All new stores would follow a new format featuring an extended range of M&S Food, wider aisles to accommodate bigger shopping trolleys and larger car parks aimed at family shoppers. These expansion criteria show the retailer is balancing local café reductions with a strategic push to reconfigure and grow its food offering in targeted locations.
What happens next
The rollout of café closures and store reconfigurations is ongoing. Local stores named for closure will see their café spaces repurposed or removed, colleagues are being redeployed within foodhall roles, and affected communities have expressed disappointment and concern for social and accessibility impacts. The retailer's 500-area wishlist and specific trading-space targets suggest further announcements about new-format openings can be expected as plans progress.
