Restoration work: painters and decorators have been busy in South Croydon’s ‘Restaurant Quarter’ over the past fortnight
The Store is being restored.
The South Croydon pub with a long-term identity crisis – previously called The Joker, Bar TXT et al – is set to reopen this month, though now with more of the air of an all-day café or bistro than a old-style south London boozer.
Works have been going over the past fortnight to prepare The Store for re-opening.
Posters in the glass frontage of the building, made up to look like the front page of a newspaper, The Croydon Herald’s “Special reopening edition”, have the headline: “ABOUT BLOODY TIME”.
With a sub-deck: “The Store is reopening.”
And it continues: “Croydon’s all-day social is making a comeback. The Store returns with food, drinks, coffee and good times from morning ‘til late.
“After what can only be described as far too long, The Store is preparing to throw open its doors once again.
“A much-loved part of Croydon’s social scene, the venue will return with the same spirit, a fresh chapter and a warm welcome for old friends and new.
“Same place. Still good company.”
The offer appears to be “Good food, good drinks” and “Good times again.”
“Croydon deserves nice things.”
Shut Store: before its closure, the bar’s previous managers had raised its prices, but not the standard of food or service
The Store in its most recent guise (“California-inspired”, apparently), closed in August 2025. It had been offering “Elevated dishes served with cocktails for brunch, dinner and Sunday roast in an industrial-chic pub”, a reference to the 1900 tiling and styling of a former Sainsbury’s store.
But the drive for “gentrification” saw The Store’s beer pumps ripped out, its bar and restaurant prices go up and its customers going elsewhere.
Freeholders Brakspear started a search in earnest for new tenants at the start of this year.
The Store has been taken on by a Brighton-based company that was formed exactly a year ago, on November 10, 2025: Propella Group Ltd. Propella has two directors, Paul Callard and the Anglo-Venezuelan Jesus Esteban Bellorin-Serrano.
Propella appears to be nexus of related companies, though the corporate website is currently a bit of a blank slate with just the motto: “Hospitality. Done differently.”
About bloody time: how the venue’s new managers have announced their reopening
In prospect at the restored Store is “an all-day social, coffee house, bar and kitchen in the heart of South Croydon…
“The Store is somewhere to drop into at any point in the day and find a reason to stay.”
They will offer “cocktails, wine and dinner” in the evenings, while “behind the bar, there’s a carefully chosen line-up of draught beer”.
They say: “At its heart, The Store is about the things that make a great neighbourhood venue: a warm welcome, a brilliant atmosphere, food you actually want to eat, drinks worth coming back for and a team that knows how to look after you.”
The venue’s new management has yet to confirm the opening date.
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Good news. Hope the Company has retained the old photos for display of the J.Sainsbury from the past, (when we used to shop in there with our parents).