Popular Sheffield city centre tea rooms Andrews Café closes on Chapel Walk
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Andrews Café tea rooms on Chapel Walk has now permanently shut, with its windows whitewashed, after business levels failed to pick up to pre-lockdown levels.
Today, it was confirmed that the business had now gone into liquidation.
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Hide AdThe café, close to Tudor Square and Sheffield’s theatres, had traditionally been popular with theatregoers on their way to shows at the Crucible and the Lyceum, and had run for over 10 years.
Adrian Graham, of Graywoods insolvency and recovery services, the joint liquidator for the cafe’s business, confirmed Andrews had now gone into liquidation.
He said: “Sadly, they never got the footfall back that they had pre-lockdown. There was the odd peak, such as during Eat Out to Help Out, but it did not come back – they were only looking at around half the footfall. There just wasn’t the footfall to keep going.”
He said the insolvency went through in March.
One former customer said: “If it has closed for good that’s a great shame. Andrews was a lovely place to go, and did nice food with good service and in attractive surroundings.”
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Hide AdFarran Whewell, the general manager of Andrew’s, said last September that three lockdowns and a loss of shoppers following a string of store closures, including the closure of John Lewis and Debenhams and a host of smaller units, had hit businesses hard.
He said at the time, after office workers had started to return to their workplaces: “Those shoppers aren’t coming back to this part of town. Unless the council does something this company is not sustainable long term. Sheffield is in a downward spiral.
“Getting through this next year will be tough unless something drastic changes.”
The unit is now one of a number on Chapel Walk which are currently unoccupied.
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Hide AdSheffield Council recently announced grants of up to £50,000 could be available for businesses to transform under-used spaces, as they try to deal with the impact of the pandemic on city centre footfall and trade
They want expressions of interest for the ReNew Fund for prime locations on and around Fargate and High Street, including Chapel Walk, Orchard Square, Norfolk Row and Surrey Street.