Harrods cafe shuts and shop to follow

THE Harrods café in Henley has closed down and a chemist is to follow suit.

H Café in Market Place shut suddenly this week after two years of trading and is now boarded up.

Superdrug, which is a few doors away, will close next month after four years. It is believed to have been facing a   substantial rent rise.

Harrods took over the former Spirited Wines unit, which had been empty for more than four years.

The café was its first outside its famous store in Knightsbridge and offered a “click and collect” service.

At the time, then town and community manager Helen Barnett described the cafe as “fabulous”.

But when the Henley Standard revealed the café’s closure on our website,
residents responded with little surprise, saying it was too expensive and did not feel “luxurious”.

Linda Layhe Nugent wrote: “They didn’t understand you can’t just plonk the name on the frontage in a community-driven market town.

“Bit of a presumption on their part and when I looked inside a few times, I walked the other way. Very uninviting and too expensive for the younger generation.”

Sarah Bee said: “Such a shame — it started off so well with decent staff and management.

“Last couple of times we went, staff were only interested in chatting to each other and no visible management.”

Sam Stratton Sims said: “Not surprised. Too expensive, loud annoying music and pretty poor service. Having worked in Harrods, London, I was pretty surprised at this place.”

Emma Taylor said: “It didn’t look or feel luxurious, was really expensive and when I tried to go, it didn’t stock decaff coffee so I wasn’t able to have a drink.

“Shame, though, as they could have got it so right and been a real asset.”   

Christie-Luke Jones said: “Poor service... won’t be missed. Good opportunity for another business.”

Harrods said it would look to redeploy the 13 staff elsewhere in the business “where possible”.

Superdrug opened in November 2017, replacing Benson for Beds, which had closed down two months earlier.

It was the company’s 794th UK store and employed 12 staff.

Craig Buckby, who is the new town and community manager, said: “What I don’t know is the reason for Harrods leaving so it could be basic commerce in that they have not been getting enough people through the door. It could also be a landlord issue and that the rents have been put up.

“If not many people used it, it could be overpriced or it could be that with what else was on offer maybe we are at saturation point.

“Superdrug is going in January and the only reason is because the landlord has hiked the rent substantially.

“I don’t think losing Harrods is a nail in the coffin of our high street by any stretch but it is sad and disappointing. But I am confident that the unit will be refilled quickly.

“I think we have a much higher occupancy rate than other comparable towns by shop number, footfall and demographics. We are well below the national average for shop vacancies.”

A Harrods spokeswoman said: “We want to thank our H Café colleagues for all of their hard work over the last two years.”

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