Morrisons announces significant in-store café closures

A latte and slice of Victoria Sponge from a Morrisons Café | Photo credit: Morrisons

UK supermarket chain Morrisons has announced plans to close 52 in-store cafés over the next few months as part of a major cost-savings drive. 
 

With 400 cafés across its 500 supermarkets, Morrisons is one of the UK’s largest non-specialist coffee shop operators. Approximately 365 staff are at risk of redundancy as a result of the closures. 
 

In a press release, Morrisons said operational costs at the affected sites are ‘significantly out of line with usage, volumes or the value that customers place on them’. The retailer’s florist, meat, fish and pharmacy counters will also be impacted by the move, as well as 17 Morrisons Daily convenience stores. 

“Morrisons Cafés are rightly famous for their great quality well-priced food, their place in the local community and their appealing mix of traditional favourites alongside exciting new dishes. In most locations the Morrisons Café has a bright future, but a minority have specific local challenges and, in those locations, regrettably, closure and re-allocation of the space is the only sensible option,” said Rami Baitiéh, CEO, Morrisons. 

In some supermarkets where cafés are facing closure, Morrisons will work with third parties to provide a ‘relevant specialist offer’, Baitiéh added. The supermarket chain already operates Costa Express self-serve coffee machines at some stores.  

Founded in 1899, Morrisons was historically considered one of the UK’s Big Four supermarkets alongside Tesco, Asda and Sainsburys until discount rivals Aldi surpassed it in terms of annual sales in 2022, demoting it to fifth place. 

In March 2023, Morrisons announced plans to cut £700m ($904m) in costs over the next three years in order to keep prices low amid the cost-of-living crisis. Indicating turnaround efforts are yielding positive results, Morrisons reported its strongest quarter since the start of 2021 for the three months ended 27 October 2024, with like-for-like sales growth of 4.9%. 

In January 2025, competitor Sainsbury’s announced plans to cut 3,000 jobs and close its remaining 61 in-store cafés as part of a restructuring plan to simplify the business and save £1bn ($1.3bn) over the next few years. 

The supermarket chain previously operated 200 Sainsbury’s Cafés but began closing sites in March 2022 as part of an overhaul of its food and beverage offer. The move has seen Sainsbury’s expand its The Restaurant Hub concept with Boparan Restaurant Group (BRG) and scale the number of in-store Starbucks and Costa Coffee concessions across its network.