Well, the Sainsbury's café have just lost themselves a regular customer

[TheLovelinessOfDemons]

Apparently, they're reopening as a coffee bar, no proper meals. I'll go somewhere else.

None of them are opening until the end of June, afaik.

The proper meals were extremely popular, throughout the day. I suspect that Sainsbury's make enough money not to care about profit from the café.

Breaking news

In the two Sainsbury's near me, the cafes are seemingly used mainly by pensioners eating cheap fish, chips and peas at lunchtime. They aren't the people who spend the most in the supermarket, so it's not encouraging the right groups to go there. I imagine families are more likely to want a quick, decent quality drink and a small snack than a full meal.

I find this quite sad 😔

My late grandmother and me made a weekly trip of the cafe local to us. It's not necessarily my bag 90% of the time but she loved it. She would be so sad to see fish and chips off the menu!

I must have introduced my entire extended family to the Sainsbury's café. My mum and I used to go regularly, we'd spend at least £30 every time. And many people used to go after the school run, before doing the shopping. One of the Sainsbury's staff is asking all the customers who she knows were regulars in the café to email Sainsbury's and complain. So it's not just me.

@LadyVymes

I used to love the brunch. Basically a full English with chips. Then they decided to not cook the mushrooms on the hot plate but to half microwave them so they weren’t cooked. I moved to Australia in disgust.

Some may say an overreaction but you are totally in the right :o

I'd be disapointed too. Coffee shops are crap. Ok, so I don't like coffee, but also the machines are horribly noisy and wooshy background noise. There's not a huge choice of cheap and cheerful meals out there, and sometimes you just want a relatively short break and a meal that you probably wouldn't cook for yourself.

Since covid, our co-op cafe hardly has any customers. Cant see it lasting long.

Sainsbury near me has a Starbucks (or did pre Covid -presume it still does)

The two other Sainsbury en route to after school activities were both dire. Went a couple of times in desperation, but never by choice.

I'm sorry you've lost somewhere cheap & convenient that you enjoyed @TheLovelinessOfDemons

You never know they might see that the old way worked better & revert back!!

I love the Sainsbury cafe, it's so sad that there are so few places to go and eat a hot meal that isn't a pub.
20 years ago there was woolworths, bhs, littlewoods, coop, debenhams and asda cafes where I live, now all gone.

BHS cafe, now you’re talking. Their fish and chips were lovely.

@TheLovelinessOfDemons

They've lost a regular customer because I was a regular customer. So were most of the residents round here.

And no, there aren't any small independent cafés in this area. There are a McDonald's and a Caffè Nero. The Sainsbury's café was somewhere to get lovely healthy meals, now we're left with nowhere.

Oh that is rubbish. McD's is what it is, and ive always thought Cafe Nero to be a bit average in comparison to other similar coffee chains.

Their breakfast with chips was amazing.

Write to them or tweet them to let them know how you feel. Ask friends and family who agree with you to do the same.

Their sole motivation in making the change will be to make or save money.

My guess is that it costs more to run a full food menu and, with the pandemic, some of the restaurants haven't been paying for themselves, so those will be for the chop.

The cafe in our local Sainsbury's is shut. Many places have slimmed down menus now too.
It's a drive to make people eat healthier. I'm convinced. Or to cut down on waste etc.
Something is behind it all and covid gets the blame.

Oh no

I love a Sainsbury’s lunch of chips sausage and beans or jacket potato with salad and grated cheese (not melted) with a pot of tea

Staff are lovely too

If they do good supermarket meals in Australia I may consider moving there too (I don’t remember them doing so)

And ours is still shut

I'm sure they'll manage.

Oh ds loved a midweek treat tea of the children's veg pasta bake, lovely bechemal slop crammed with veg and pasta. One member of staff saw him practically scraping the glaze off the bowl and brought him a mini bowl of chips

They did change their hot choc from own brand to galaxy in the cafe and it became disgusting so that did upset me. Manky hot choc spoils the cake!

@Comefromaway

BHS cafe, now you’re talking. Their fish and chips were lovely.

Oh yes and I loved the full English breakfasts at bhs cafes

I mean, I have no intention of starting a petition and given I haven't eaten there in about 6 years I don't think I really have much consumer power on this one. But blimey I have fond memories of their breakfasts when DS1 was a baby and I was on maternity leave. I was in the "bloody hellfire why did noone tell me how unbelievably hard parenting was...I'm so tired...ooh chips...I'm so tired " stage.

I always felt special and posh because I had to specifically request scrambled egg in my breakfast got me through the trauma of ds1 establishing his "Sleep is for wimps " stage. he is eight and I still secretly hold a grudge

BHS! ( sighs)
It was a great shop with a lovely cafe.
Miss it ( and woolies)

I don’t remember woolies having a cafe

BHS did an amazing coffee and walnut cake and lovely toasted sandwiches better than M&S

The woolies in Newquay had a cafe. Only one I ever went in that had one on holiday once. Years ago now of course.
Tesco one was great then it became an expensive coffee shop. So I stopped going in it.