Marks And Spencer’s food-first pivot: cafe closures and a new large-format rulebook reshape expansion momentum

What changes now is clear: marks and spencer is trading some in-store social space for larger food retail footprints and a tightly prescribed pipeline for new openings. That shift will affect shoppers who use in-store cafés, the specific towns listed for growth, and the company’s rollout cadence — including 20 planned openings that create 800 jobs between November 2025 and March 2026.

Marks And Spencer’s expansion math — bigger stores, fewer cafes

The strategic tilt is toward larger M& S Food sites and away from smaller on-site cafés. Company officials say customers want a wider M& S Food range, and the business is repurposing café areas into expanded foodhall space to meet that demand. One explicit example: the café at Waterlooville in the Wellington Retail Park has been confirmed as the latest closure and will be reworked into a larger foodhall; the repurposing is scheduled for next month.

Event details and the list of closures

On-site cafés have closed in recent months in Crawley, Dunblane, Stirling and Congleton. The Waterlooville café is the most recently confirmed casualty as the store shifts floor space to a bigger food offer. A Regional Manager named Rebecca Rabadia said customers want a wider range of M& S Food and that the company will re-purpose the café space next month to offer more products, including more Select Farms produce; she acknowledged the move will be disappointing for some customers and said teams will continue working hard to serve shoppers in-store.

Store criteria, pipeline and geographic targets

The roll-out is being governed by a new brochure of requirements: all new sites must be 21, 500+ sqft, located in highly visible spots with easy access to major roads, and provide dedicated parking. A list of 500 potential locations has been published, with multiple Hampshire sites named — Portsmouth, Waterlooville, Bishops Waltham, Locks Heath/Fareham, Chandler’s Ford, Basingstoke, Fleet, Hook and Petersfield.

Scale, timing and jobs

Between November 2025 and March 2026, 20 new or renewed stores are set to open, creating 800 jobs. Company leadership frames this as part of a plan to double the brand by opening new stores across the country. Alex Freudmann, managing director of M& S Food, said the strong performance of new food stores gives confidence to explore more locations across the UK, from Elgin to Exmouth, and that the team is seeking sites where a large M& S Food store can be opened to deliver the desired shopping experience, range and availability.

• Here’s the part that matters: the company is substituting café footprints for larger product floors as the operational default for many stores.
• 500-location list includes a concentration of Hampshire targets alongside nationwide ambitions.
• 20 openings scheduled in a defined window, tied to an explicit jobs figure of 800.

Other recent headlines running alongside these developments bore terse titles such as "Service unavailable" and "Verifying Device, " reflecting local coverage and site notices that appeared during reporting of the changes.

Key timeline (embedded):

• Next month: Waterlooville café space to be repurposed into a larger foodhall (unclear in the provided context which exact month this is).
• November 2025–March 2026: 20 new or renewed stores planned, creating 800 jobs.
• Ongoing: a published list of 500 potential locations being used to target future large-format openings.

What’s easy to overlook is the operational trade-off: converting café seating into retail space directly prioritizes product availability and scale over in-store social amenities. That may improve product range and availability but will remove familiar customer spaces in towns where cafés have closed.

Promotional detail from recent coverage also noted a subscription push: a digital subscription option was highlighted as a way to access more content, fewer ads and loyalty rewards.

Final practical signals: teams are actively reconfiguring store footprints, a strict minimum store size is now part of site selection, and a 500-location longlist will drive where large-format food stores appear. The real question now is whether replacing cafés with expanded foodhalls will sustain footfall and customer loyalty in the communities affected.