Sainsbury’s is closing 200 in-store cafés in a major shake up.
The plans will hit around 2,000 workers.
Sainsbury’s told staff at its cafes on Tuesday morning that it is proposing to close 200 sites in the spring.
It said workers affected by the closures will be prioritised for vacant roles in stores and will be encouraged to apply for jobs elsewhere in the business.
The remaining 67 in-store cafes will stay open while the company reviews changes to its dining operations.
So what’s the situation in York and North Yorkshire? We’ve been lucky. Here’s the list:
- Monk’s Cross, York: Staying
- Scarborough: Staying
- Harrogate: Staying
Further afield, the cafés at Leeds Colton, Bradford, Halifax and Shorehead are set to close.
The Haxby, Selby and Tadcaster stores don’t have cafés. But they do have food counters which are also being affected across Sainsbury’s nationwide.
The supermarket said it will also be consulting staff about plans to close less popular hot food counters in 34 stores and changes to how it runs bakeries in 54 branches. The locations of these haven’t yet been revealed.
Sainsbury’s said it will also open 30 more restaurant hubs in stores in partnership with Boparan Restaurant Group (BRG), which runs the Caffe Carluccio’s, Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Ed’s Diner and Slim Chickens brands.
It said the move follows a successful trial partnership at its branch in Selly Oak, Birmingham.
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The company said it will also open 30 Starbucks sites in its supermarkets, as it seeks to overhaul its offer across 250 stores over the next three years.
Dave Gill of shop union Usdaw said: “This is devastating news for our members affected by Sainsbury’s proposals. Usdaw’s local reps and officials will now engage in talks with store managers, where they will be looking at the business case for the company’s planned changes.”
Reader comment – Malcolm Hutton
Sainsbury’s used to have some of the best cafes anywhere, of course they could never be classed as gourmet cooking, no expected them to be. What they didn’t provide was a place where locals could go, have some nice food when shopping, or call in just to meet friends, the food was fresh, well cooked and the staff were always very friendly and more importantly, clean and tidy, as was the eating area’s.no matter which store you went to.
Now, ever since the ‘dumbing down’ process was commenced by Sainsbury’s over the past 2 years whereby they have, instead of standing proud and retaining the levels they had previously been known for, Sainsbury’s reduced costs by getting rid of staff and all that was good and drew customers to the stores. Now every store you go to are like ghost stores with little customer traffic where customers filled the stores at all hours of the day, cafes were reduced to pre-portioned and pre-packaged foodstuffs of all types with the only actual fresh items being tea or coffee.
Like all British companies, customers stabbed in the back and made to pay for management mistakes and errors, they may as well close the stores, why, because customers are made to feel like customers at Aldi, Lidl and all the others who actually think about customers unlike stores like Sainsbury’s have become now!