Gaping hole in the High Street: Five Guys, which had traded from the large town centre premises for eight years, closed last week. The former Blacks/Millets store next door closed six months earlier
It’s not just Croydon’s pubs which are closing down.
Five Guys, the pricy American burger joint on Croydon High Street, has closed in the past week.
While Croydon’s failed Mayor, Jason Perry, drops his chips over the opening of a couple of kiosks where the Allders department store used to be, Five Guys joins an accelerating exodus of businesses from Croydon town centre.
Earlier this week, Inside Croydon reported how 27 units inside the increasingly dilapidated Whitgift Centre have closed in the past 12 months.
This “managed decline” of the shopping mall is under the control of developers Westfield, who this week managed to open an Islamic clothing outfitters and a florists’ shop on the site of Allders, which council bailiffs closed down six years ago on instructions from… Westfield.
A handful of “kiosks” (which is how they were described by Westfield) seems unlikely to turnround the declining fortunes of Croydon town centre, as Westfield have been promising to do since 2012.
Yesterday’s latest openings were greeted by piss-poor Perry with the usual load of gush and nonsense, as the Mayor demonstrated once again he’s more likely to advocate for big business than fight for the interests of Croydon’s residents and business owners: “Great”, “Stunning”, “a real game-changer”, “transformation” were among the plainly ludicrous things he said.
Café society: The Milan Bar on Croydon High Street has been empty since it closed three years ago
The only real transformation that is going on is that of businesses closing down all around North End, George Street and the High Street.
Last week, Inside Croydon reported on the latest two Croydon pubs to close.
Five Guys occupied a pub site, the former Yates bar, which closed in 2015. Five Guys had been trading from 7-11 High Street since 2017, but the huge premises were rarely busy with diners, and the business appeared to depend on delivery orders. The burger chain has opened a branch at Valley Park, off Purley Way, which will doubtless pick up the slack of that trade, without town centre rents or business rates.
Next door, what had long been Blacks became Millets in 2017, when the outdoor wear and camping retailers closed down their store at the top of Surrey Street – Milletts Corner – where it had been based for almost a century. The high street store closed around six months ago and has been boarded up since, although there has been some building works going on inside in the past month.
Across the road from Five Guys, the large town centre Post Office is set to close soon.
Caribbean chain restaurant Turtle Bay closed earlier this year, and nearby, The Milan Bar was shut by Wetherspoons in 2022 – one of five ‘Spoons in Croydon to have been shut down in recent years.
Asian food hall Tokia Square has, meanwhile, opened in the Grants building earlier this year, though it is too early to judge how well trading is going there.
Against this backdrop, part-time Perry – a director of the unironically named Croydon Business Improvement District – thinks the handful of retail jobs created in a burkha shop or in Miniso, which opened a fortnight ago, is in some way “a real game-changer”.
Which suggests he is either delusional, or he’s lying to you.
Read more: Two more Croydon town centre pubs pull down the shutters
Read more: Another Whitgift store to close – and manager blames Westfield
Read more: ‘Permanently closed’: Whitgift Centre works mark end of days
Read more: Hammer blow for Whitgift Centre with new delay to masterplan
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Tokia Square seems pretty dead and overstaffed too. Unless they are heavily subsidised by CC …..it’s a goner too imho. But at least if I need a Turkish hijab, I know Croydon Town Centre the place to go to now!
“…he is either delusional, or he’s lying to you.”
With Piss-Poor Perry, it is probably both ?!
Rack another one up to Croydon’s parking charges
Used to visit town centre every week
Now I never go.
Still the Mayor won’t bring back free on street parking Sunday
I see no reason to visit Croydon, and more and more as a place to avoid.
perry needs to be booted out, as he is too much of a pachyderm to notice the intense dislike he generates and won’t resign.
The Facebook algorithm is on to me.
It has given me another video of Sarah Jones MP.
Here she is by a pair of North End BT phone boxes, kiosks if you like.
Instead of seeking the removal of grafitti from them, she is lobbying BT to remove them completely.
One has a homeless person’s bedding in it, but she says it must still go.
Warning: There are a few robust public comments on this posting including about how Ms Jones might better spend her time.
She has definitely escaped from her Whitgift Centre office, despite URW property speculator’s many removed staircases, blocked accesses and drip collection buckets.
We try to avoid links to other sites, Nick. You describe Jones’s video very well.
I don’t know what Perry is trying to acheive in Croydon? The only thing I can see from the dystopian dysfunctional declining hovel that is left is as a film studio location for post apocalypse film making. Since that it is how it feels walking around central Croydon these days.
First of all I would close Croydon Bid. Is useless and an extra expense on businesses. Second I would reduce service charge to half for at least a couple of years as an incentive to open/stay in Croydon. Otherwise be ready for more closing.
Hang on – businesses voted to set up the BID and pay for it. They’ll decide if it’s worth it. Or not.
When the Beckenham BID renewal date came up a year ago, a majority of businesses voted against it continuing.
It added 1% or so to the Business Rates and was compulsory on all in the catchment area.
A dental surgery saw no benefit from BID activities. A convenience store thought the set up communication was junk mail and so did not know about it or get to vote.
Businesses are struggling, I hear.
It has meant that the Beckenham Christmas Lights and Tree have had to be organised by volunteers, funded by generous business voluntary donations last year and this.
The Penge BID still exists.
I think Cristiano di Mattei was expressing his own opinion, as he is entitled to!
Upmarket burgers aren’t very Croydon … cheap chicken joints more like it.