Marks And Spencer café cuts in Hull leave regulars and staff immediately affected as retail reshuffle points to a bigger store move

Local customers and frontline staff are the first to feel the impact of the latest marks and spencer café closures: Kingswood’s café is listed among 14 nationwide café shutdowns, while the nearby Anlaby site has already been altered as part of a foodhall refresh. Here’s the part that matters — the changes shift where people meet, who keeps café roles, and how the retailer plans to reconfigure space in the area going forward.

Immediate impact on customers and staff at Marks And Spencer cafés

Customers who met regularly at the Kingswood café and staff who worked there are named among those affected. One customer expressed that she and other café regulars were greatly saddened by the closure and felt sorry for staff being moved into different roles. She added that the café had become a place where quite a few people became friends, that it was disabled friendly, and that it catered for people with dietary restrictions. colleagues will be redeployed to other roles across the foodhall.

How the closure fits into the wider operational changes

The Kingswood closure is part of a national pullback that includes 14 cafés being shut down. It follows the closure of the café at Anlaby Retail Park at the end of last year. The rationale provided for closing cafés in some locations is to allow a wider range of products to be offered inside food halls in response to customer demand. The Food Hall at Anlaby Retail Park has been shut for more than a month for a "refresh" and the former café there is not returning.

Store moves, planning notes and the Kingswood redevelopment

Plans are in place to open a new, larger store at Kingswood Retail Park in Autumn/Winter 2027. That new store will take up part of the unit which currently houses Matalan; the unit is to be divided with Matalan keeping one side and Marks And Spencer moving into the other. Planning documents submitted to the local council stated the existing premises is too large for Matalan’s business model requirements, while the current marks and spencer food store at Kingswood is described as too small to meet the retailer’s business model requirements — a point framed as mutually beneficial for both brands.

Operational timeline and site status

Timeline (as stated):

• Anlaby Retail Park café closure was noted as occurring at the end of last year.
• The Food Hall at Anlaby closed on January 24 and is expected to reopen in March.
• A new larger Kingswood store is expected to open in Autumn/Winter 2027.

There are no current business plans for the retailer to return to Hull city centre; the retailer was based in Whitefriargate until 2019.

Shifts inside the foodhall and what customers should expect

Closing cafés to expand foodhall offerings signals a change in how space will be used: fewer sit-down café spots in some locations and a broader product range in the remaining foodhalls. If you’re wondering why this keeps coming up, it’s tied to the stated aim of meeting customer demand for more variety in food-hall offerings while consolidating physical café operations.

• 14 cafés nationally are being shut down, with Kingswood named among them.
• Staff impacted at closing cafés will be redeployed to roles within foodhalls.
• Anlaby’s former café will not return after the site’s refresh; the Food Hall closed on January 24 and is expected to reopen in March.
• A new, larger Kingswood store will occupy part of the current Matalan unit and is expected in Autumn/Winter 2027.
• No current plans exist to return to Hull city centre; the retailer’s previous presence there ended in 2019.

It’s easy to overlook, but the planning descriptions — that one unit is too large for Matalan while the existing marks and spencer site is too small for the retailer — point to a spatial compromise rather than a simple closure. The result is presented internally as a win-win: a split unit with different-sized footprints for each brand.

Writer's aside: The human side of these shifts matters — regular meeting places disappear while stores reconfigure, and redeployment doesn’t erase the social role cafés played for some customers.

The real question now is how the planned Kingswood rebuild and the removal of local café space will change everyday routines for the community and whether the refreshed foodhall model will deliver the options customers are said to want.