By Helen Carter
The Guardian
April 25, 2007
The sudden closure of one of the few independent coffee shops in Manchester is an ominous sign.
The stark metal shutters outside Suburb in Manchester, are an ominous sign that all is not well with one of the city's last remaining independent coffee shops. A police officer stood nearby, but confusingly, he was just keeping an eye on visiting football fans.
Suburb was a rarity in the city's central shopping district - an independent coffee shop amid the plethora of big multinational companies, restaurants and shops that make Manchester as bland as any other large town or city in the UK.
It shouldn't really come as a surprise that Suburb is closed - it has faced fierce competition from the big companies that have been buying land and opening coffee shops at a swift pace - there are at least four Starbucks within a five-minute walk and two Caffe Neros. But its closure has been sudden, unwelcome and unexpected, just three years after it opened.
It promoted live music, photography and good coffee to a generation keen to embrace an alternative to the big corporations. Once a month, it would host live music in its basement. I can't imagine that happening in the coffee chains, somehow. Oh, and it also made great coffee and smoothies.
Rupert Ashwell, the manager of Suburb's London branch in Neal Street, believes it is the big coffee chains aggressively opening up new outlets - often at a loss - and pushing up rents that has precipitated the closure.
In Manchester, Starbucks now has a total of nine branches. Other coffee shops have sprouted up like mushrooms in the last three years as the city has been regenerated and the old buildings replaced by anonymous glass blocks.
Ashwell says it is difficult to make a profit with the big corporations snapping at its heels. He also berates the city's landlords and their "desire for extortionate rents" for the problems. There are still hopes that Suburb will re-open in a couple of days if the issues are resolved, but this may be a rather naive hope. Even so, I wish them well.
Suburb's demise made headline news on the Manchester Confidential website, and it is clearly much missed by customers. If Suburb's closure becomes permanent, then Deansgate is in danger of becoming an outdoor version of the Trafford Centre, ie bland.
Not surprisingly, there has been a backlash against this homogenisation of our high streets. The I Hate Starbucks website has had more than 5,500 posts on its site, which as it says "is an awful lot". Since its first store opened in Seattle 36 years ago, Starbucks has grown to be a worldwide phenomenon, with 12,500 branches, a £4bn revenue and more than 115,000 employees. Plans are afoot to expand the company, and its chief executive cheerily boasts that it will be opening a branch every fortnight in London over the next decade.
That really is too much and surely something can be done to stop this invasion. It is not a fair playing field. Adrian Maddox, author of Classic Cafes, says the big chains pay landlords top whack - which then puts pressure on other businesses in the street.
Starbucks has attempted to head off criticism by cutting unhealthy fats, selling Fairtrade coffee and using some recycling of its materials. But the company has advantages over its smaller competitors - the prime locations, the ability to pay higher rents and omnipresence which can easily crush any small independents. I hope, for the sake of independent coffee shops across the whole of the UK, that Suburb can re-open again.
The Guardian
April 25, 2007
The sudden closure of one of the few independent coffee shops in Manchester is an ominous sign.
The stark metal shutters outside Suburb in Manchester, are an ominous sign that all is not well with one of the city's last remaining independent coffee shops. A police officer stood nearby, but confusingly, he was just keeping an eye on visiting football fans.
Suburb was a rarity in the city's central shopping district - an independent coffee shop amid the plethora of big multinational companies, restaurants and shops that make Manchester as bland as any other large town or city in the UK.
It shouldn't really come as a surprise that Suburb is closed - it has faced fierce competition from the big companies that have been buying land and opening coffee shops at a swift pace - there are at least four Starbucks within a five-minute walk and two Caffe Neros. But its closure has been sudden, unwelcome and unexpected, just three years after it opened.
It promoted live music, photography and good coffee to a generation keen to embrace an alternative to the big corporations. Once a month, it would host live music in its basement. I can't imagine that happening in the coffee chains, somehow. Oh, and it also made great coffee and smoothies.
Rupert Ashwell, the manager of Suburb's London branch in Neal Street, believes it is the big coffee chains aggressively opening up new outlets - often at a loss - and pushing up rents that has precipitated the closure.
In Manchester, Starbucks now has a total of nine branches. Other coffee shops have sprouted up like mushrooms in the last three years as the city has been regenerated and the old buildings replaced by anonymous glass blocks.
Ashwell says it is difficult to make a profit with the big corporations snapping at its heels. He also berates the city's landlords and their "desire for extortionate rents" for the problems. There are still hopes that Suburb will re-open in a couple of days if the issues are resolved, but this may be a rather naive hope. Even so, I wish them well.
Suburb's demise made headline news on the Manchester Confidential website, and it is clearly much missed by customers. If Suburb's closure becomes permanent, then Deansgate is in danger of becoming an outdoor version of the Trafford Centre, ie bland.
Not surprisingly, there has been a backlash against this homogenisation of our high streets. The I Hate Starbucks website has had more than 5,500 posts on its site, which as it says "is an awful lot". Since its first store opened in Seattle 36 years ago, Starbucks has grown to be a worldwide phenomenon, with 12,500 branches, a £4bn revenue and more than 115,000 employees. Plans are afoot to expand the company, and its chief executive cheerily boasts that it will be opening a branch every fortnight in London over the next decade.
That really is too much and surely something can be done to stop this invasion. It is not a fair playing field. Adrian Maddox, author of Classic Cafes, says the big chains pay landlords top whack - which then puts pressure on other businesses in the street.
Starbucks has attempted to head off criticism by cutting unhealthy fats, selling Fairtrade coffee and using some recycling of its materials. But the company has advantages over its smaller competitors - the prime locations, the ability to pay higher rents and omnipresence which can easily crush any small independents. I hope, for the sake of independent coffee shops across the whole of the UK, that Suburb can re-open again.
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