Dismay at Closure of Popular Town Centre Coffee Shop

Artisan 'couldn't make the numbers work' after rent and rates increases

Artisan on New Broadway will serve its last customer next month. Picture: Instagram

January 29, 2026

Artisan Coffee, one of Ealing’s most popular independent cafés, will close its New Broadway branch on 8 February after more than twelve years serving the local community. The announcement has left many residents saddened, with regular customers describing the café as a vital social space that brought people together in the heart of the town.

The closure follows a series of steep cost increases that the business says it can no longer absorb. According to Edwin Harrison, a director of Naked Coffee Limited, which owns the Artisan Coffee chain, the café is facing a £9,000 rise in business rates next year, alongside a £25,000 rent increase demanded by the landlord. These pressures come on top of previous national insurance rises and other operating costs that have climbed sharply in recent years.

Mr Harrison said the decision had been devastating for the team but they just ‘couldn’t make the numbers work’ . He explained that despite strong customer loyalty and consistently high sales, the financial pressures had made the business unsustainable. He added that the café had been a well‑loved part of Ealing for more than a decade, and that the team was deeply saddened to be leaving.

Artisan Coffee began in Putney in 2011 and quickly became known for its focus on high‑quality beans, skilled baristas and welcoming spaces designed for creativity and conversation. The Ealing branch was one of the chain’s earliest and most successful locations, attracting a loyal following of families, remote workers, students and weekend visitors. Over time, the brand expanded to several sites across London and helped shape the capital’s independent coffee culture.

The closure reflects the wider challenges facing hospitality businesses across the UK. Independent cafés and restaurants have been hit particularly hard by rising rents, higher business rates, increased staffing costs and energy bills that remain significantly above pre‑pandemic levels. Many operators have warned that margins have become impossibly tight, and insolvencies in the sector have reached record highs over the past two years.

The situation has also reignited debate about the government’s approach to business rates relief. The Chancellor recently announced that pubs are to receive dedicated relief in recognition of their role as community assets, but cafés and restaurants do not benefit from the same support. Hospitality trade bodies have long argued that this creates an uneven playing field, especially when cafés often serve similar community functions and face identical cost pressures. Many independent operators say that the lack of equivalent relief has accelerated closures on high streets already struggling with reduced footfall and rising vacancies.

For Ealing, the loss of Artisan Coffee is another blow to a town centre where several units remain empty and where residents have expressed concern about the decline in local retail and hospitality. One customer described the closure as “very sad news” and said that Ealing “is not like it used to be,” pointing to the growing number of shuttered shops.