Major coffee chain with 2,000 branches suddenly shuts high street store following string of closures
The decision to close another town centre branch has been described as a "sign of the times" as businesses face increasing cost pressures.
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Costa Coffee on Whitstable High Street, Kent, closed its doors for the final time on June 29.
Customers will now have to go to the drive-thru cafe beside Chesterfield roundabout instead.
When Costa Coffee first arrived on Whitsable High Street five years ago there was some initial disquiet.
The area is fiercely proud of its reputation for independent stores and cafes.
But it's the latest casualty in a string of nationwide closures by the coffee chain which were first announced last year.
This included the Costa in Maidstone town centre which shut up shop in January 2024.
The Whitstable store had mixed reviews online and only gained an average of three stars on Tripadvisor.
Customers complained about cutbacks to opening hours and describing the cafe as "dingy".
However, the location had 4.1 out of 5 stars on Google reviews with customers praising the coffee and the service.
The location is now being advertised for an annual rent of £35,000.
Costa confirmed the closure of the branch on June 30 but did not reveal why it had shut or how many staff were to be affected.
The boss of Kent's biggest independent coffee shop chain, HatHats, which has a store in Whitstable Harbour, told KentOnline that it's a "sign of the times".
Louis Hurst said: "I think the fact that a name as big as Costa is closing branches shows the increasing cost pressures so many businesses in our sector and beyond are facing.
"Increases to National Insurance contributions, and in our case the number of staff who now qualify for employers' National Insurance, has seen a huge hike in our employment costs - and that's before we talk about increases in rent, utilities and the goods we buy.'
"The world coffee price for green beans, for example, has also risen by over 90% in a year.'
Costa have closed a number of its stores this year.
In April, the company announced it was pulling down the shutters on its branch in Broxbourne, leaving locals gutted.
In the same month, the Lyme Regis branch also announced its closure after more than a decade serving flat whites, cappuccinos and caramel lattes to locals and tourists alike.
Plenty of other locations throughout the UK have been pouring their last cup of coffee too.
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."
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