UK-based The Gentlemen Baristas placed into administration

The specialty coffee roaster and café business has closed all but four of its coffee shops | Photo credit: Volodymyr Proskurovskyi

London-based The Gentlemen Baristas has appointed insolvency firm Parker Getty as administrators and closed all but four of its outlets. 
 

Founded in 2014 by Henry Ayers and Ed Parkes, The Gentlemen Baristas reached 11 London sites in 2022 and had established a robust wholesale coffee channel, supplying cafés, restaurants and hotels, alongside a direct-to-consumer packaged coffee subscription.  

The specialty coffee roaster and café business has now closed all but four of its coffee shops – in Borough, London Bridge, Mayfair and Piccadilly. Its 12,000sq ft Stratford roastery, opened in March 2023, also remains in operation. The site, which also houses a cupping room and barista training school and doubled the production capacity of The Gentlemen Baristas original roastery. 

UK coffee businesses have faced tough trading conditions over the last 18 months amid acute staff shortages, high energy and property costs, inflation and dampened consumer confidence.  

In November 2022, travel hub-focused AMT Coffee appointed Interpath Advisors as administrators after successive years of falling revenues. The business was later sold out of administration to travel food and beverage operator SSP Group which acquired 25 of AMT Coffee’s 43 outlets. 

In January 2023, healthy food and beverage chain Crussh was sold out of administration to business advisory firm FRP, which retained eight of the company’s 11 sites. The following July Belgian bakery café chain Le Pain Quotidien entered administration and closed all but one of its UK stores. 

Additionally, in September 2023 café group Cooks Coffee Company placed its UK-based franchise coffee chain Triple Two into administration. New Zealand-based Cooks Coffee said the business had been adversely impacted by the ‘current market environment’, despite steady outlet growth through 2022-23.