A MAJOR coffee chain, with over 2,000 branches, has announced the closure of yet another store.
The branch is set to close in just days, leaving coffee drinkers devastated.
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Costa Coffee is the latest high street name to shut up a shop with locals in Lyme Regis gutted as the popular café prepares to pour its last cup.
The branch, based on Broad Street in the heart of the seaside town, is set to close for good next week after more than a decade serving flat whites, cappuccinos and caramel lattes to locals and tourists alike.
Baristas will be clocking off for the final time on Thursday, 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.
Read more on the high street
A spokesperson for the coffee giant confirmed the decision, saying: “We can confirm that our Costa Coffee store in Lyme Regis will be closing its doors for trade on 24 April.”
Locals have taken to Facebook to share their disappointment.
One user said: “It’s such a disapointment, i can’t believe it”.
Another added: “Such a shame to lose another store”.
A third chimed in: “The high street is just not what it used to be, so sad”.
It follows a string of closures for Costa Coffee.
Just this week Costa shut its Shell Highworth Service station branch.
You can see the full list of 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
The news follows a string of high street closures in the West Dorset town.
Boots shut its Broad Street store last February and celeb chef Mark Hix’s restaurant The Oyster & Fish House also packed up in December, blaming rising costs.
Beach & Badger café on Marine Parade also called it a day last year and now trades under a new name – The Terrace.
One local wrote on social media: “It is always sad when any business has to close, especially when it affects local jobs and livelihoods.”
It’s not yet clear what will move into the empty unit but with another big name gone, locals say the high street just won’t be the same.
Other shops leaving the high street
Its not just food chains and coffee shops that are shutting up shop.
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.”
