Major coffee chain with 2,000 locations abruptly shuts another branch following string of high street closures
A MAJOR coffee chain, with over 2,000 branches, shut another store in a fresh blow for the high street.
Costa Coffee is the latest name to pull down the shutters last weekend, leaving locals in Broxbourne gutted.
A Costa Coffee Spokesperson said: “We can confirm that our store in Broxbourne, which is owned and operated by one of our franchise partners, closed on the weekend.
“Customers can continue to enjoy their favourite Costa coffee at our nearest store in the Morrisons Centre, Hoddesdon.”
Disappointed shoppers took to Facebook to share their views on the closure.
Reacting to the news, one shopper wrote: “With the cost of living and everything else, people just haven’t got the money for coffee!”
Another added: “Really hope staff receive some redundancy and find a job soon. Feel for anyone in this position.”
A third chipped in: “That’s 3 places that have closed along there in as many months.”
But not everyone was disappointed.
One person said: “Good I am glad — I’m sick of seeing coffee cups thrown everywhere on the streets, left on walls, windows, even on top of cars.”
It follows a string of closures for Costa Coffee, as many of the big chains have been facing rising costs and falling footfall across the high street.
Baristas in Costa’s Lyme Regis branch clocked off for the final time on April 24 – with regulars describing the shock move as “very upsetting”.
Costa took over the site back in 2012 from estate agents Fortnam, Smith and Bennett and quickly became a go-to spot for everything from weekend coffees to cosy catch-ups.
Two weeks ago, it also shut its Shell Highworth Service station branch.
You can see the full list of Costa closures below:
- Shell Highworth Service Station – closed April 20, 2025
- Stockton High Street – closing end of May 2025
- Lyndhurst, New Forest – closed
- Bridlington, Yorkshire – closed
- Packhorse Road, Buckinghamshire
- King Street, Maidstone, Kent
- Chiswick High Road, London
- Bruntsfield Place, Edinburgh
- Rottingdean, Brighton and Cove
- Erdington High Street, Birmingham
- Cheltenham (inside House of Fraser)
- Stockton Heath, Warrington
- High Street West, Uppingham
- Fleet Walk, Burnley
- Alexandra Retail Park, Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent
Other shops leaving the high street
Beales, one of Britain’s oldest department stores, has launched a closing down sale before it shuts its last remaining shop after more than 140 years.
The company will shut its branch in Poole’s Dolphin Centre on May 31.
The sale includes fashion, furniture, gifts and cosmetics, being sold for up to 70% off.
Beales chief executive Tony Brown blamed the “devastating impact” of the rise in national insurance contributions and the higher minimum wage for the store closure.
Meanwhile, Huttons in London will shut its store in the Putney Exchange due to excessive energy costs.
The gift shop became a local icon after it opened in the 1990s.
Meanwhile, high street fashion chain New Look has begun to close stores as it scales back its UK footprint.
It is understood to be shutting nearly 100 stores – equivalent to around a quarter of its 364 shops.
Stores in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, St Austell, Cornwall and Porth, Rhondda Cynon Taf have launched closing down sales.
Reports suggest that the company has been forced to accelerate the pace of store closures due to tax changes in the Autumn Budget.
RETAIL PAIN IN 2025
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury's hike to employer NICs will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
Research by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that more than half of companies plan to raise prices by early April.
A survey of more than 4,800 firms found that 55% expect prices to increase in the next three months, up from 39% in a similar poll conducted in the latter half of 2024.
Three-quarters of companies cited the cost of employing people as their primary financial pressure.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: “The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025.”
Professor Bamfield has also warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector.
“By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer’s household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020.”