A popular Newcastle city centre coffee shop has closed its doors after 15 years - to move just yards away over the road.
Central Bean Coffee Shop has served a steady stream of regular customers and visitors since opening in the Time Central building back in 2008, but when the lease came to an end owners Vaulkhard Group decided to take a different approach. The company owns and operates a number of high profile bars and restaurants around the city centre and further afield, including Blakes, the Bridge Tavern, Blakes, the Town Wall, Bar Luga and Red House.
As it also owns the prominent building Bealim House opposite Central Bean – which is home to the hospitality group’s head office, a bar and connected gin business and Thali Tray restaurant – director Ollie Vaulkhard opted not to renew the lease and instead move the cafe into the Bealim building.
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Over the last few days, Central Bean’s old base has been dismantled and its windows covered over, but a fresh lick of blue paint has appeared on a front section of Bealim House, marking the new location for the coffee shop, which has put in place in the corner section of the ground floor over the weekend.
Mr Vaulkhard said: “We moved at the weekend. There’s a few little tweaks to be made but Central Bean is now in Bealim House. We need to decide if we’re going to put in a kitchen - Thali Tray is now based upstairs and using our main kitchen – but for now we’re going to see how it goes, and see how much of our trade follows us over the road.
“It’s in a part of Newcastle that didn’t recover as well after Covid and I’d say trade was down 10-20%, whereas Grey Street came back much strong and was 10-20% up. So, we had two buildings open, but one building which was underused, and we own the building. So when the lease came to an end for Central Bean I just thought there must be a more sensible way to do this.
“It may slightly take away from our match day trade, but football should be a bonus rather than our reason for being. It will change the dynamic - it will open from 8am in the morning now, and you’ll only be able to get coffees from 8am to 1pm. I don’t want to tell people how to use it though, so we’ll have coffees available all day.”
Vaulkhard Group is also busy on its plans to open its first venue in Sunderland, beneath the new Holiday Inn being built in Keel Square. The new venue - Vaulhard’s 19th in the North East - will serve food and drinks during the day and into the evening.
Mr Vaulkhard added: “When you look at the investment that is being made in Sunderland, you can see this is an exciting time.”
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