Has government policy failed high street hospitality?

Many graduations have been celebrated in Mettricks Guildhall, many meetings have taken place in the past 10 years, but no matter how many people drink a coffee from the venue (£4.50 approx) the taxes and rates are too high for independent traders.

Spencer Bowman spoke to Xan Phillips after announcing this week that this city centre venue will close. Mettricks is still open in Portswood, Woolston and West Quay, but sadly the Cultural Quarter has been failed by government policy and the recent anoucement failed to deliver any help.

The full press release is below

It is with real sadness that we announce the closure of Mettricks Guildhall end of day this Sunday 9th August 2026.

This is a decision that has not been taken lightly. In fact, it is probably the hardest decision we have made in the 13 years of Mettricks.

For ten years, Mettricks Guildhall has been our home, our spiritual home really, and for many people it has become part of the fabric of Southampton. Southampton’s Living Room.

When we opened in 2016, we had a pretty simple ambition. We wanted to create a proper independent coffee house in the best coffee house traditions, right at the heart of our emerging Cultural Quarter.

Somewhere with better coffee, good home comfort food and a cosy, warm welcome based on the memory of my grandparents' bustling home. But also somewhere for our city to meet, where things happened. Somewhere that felt like it belonged to Southampton.

And Guildhall has been exactly that.

Looking back now, it is quite incredible how much has happened around those tables over the last ten years. Guildhall has been home to an extraordinarily diverse collection of people, ideas and events.

On our opening day in April 2016 we hosted the launch of Southampton’s Cultural Manifesto, which captured so much of the hope and excitement about what our Cultural Quarter could become, and where our collective ambition to aim for a 2028 City of Culture bid was signposted.

Tragically, that momentum and optimism has been replaced over the years with a resigned weariness as huge resources have been spent with very little legacy. That’s another story for another time.

I’d like to think that we leave a real and lasting legacy.

Upstairs at Guildhall was the meeting place for the first meet-up for what became Southampton Pride, one of our city’s great successes of that time – and we have been proud supporters ever since.

It was home to the amazing Big Movement steering group as they plotted to create a huge moment in support of men’s mental health. It was the founding home of the RSA Southampton movement, continuing that great tradition of coffee houses being places where people come together to have ideas, disagree with each other and try to make things better.

We’ve supported local charities from Society of St James and No Limits raid £10,000s, and our space has always been available for the doers in our city to do good, and for those feeling vulnerable to have a safe space.

We hosted hundreds of MetJam music jams, Music in the City, SO:Fringe Festival and SO:ToSpeak. We worked with our wonderful friends at City Eye on Southampton Film Week and supported British Art Show 8 when it was here in Southampton.

We hosted countless art and photography exhibitions, including work by our long-time friend Gerry Walden.

We've had film screenings, meetings, business launches, parties, community gatherings, charity events, campaigns, exhibitions, music, poetry, first dates, proposals, birthday breakfasts, business meetings and political meetings of every shade – and probably many thousands of conversations whose significance we will never know.

And then there is our rather large SOUTHAMPTON sign. We commissioned it because we wanted to make something bright that belonged to the city. Julien Masson and the Dukes Keepers brought it to life and it has become part of the Southampton landscape. We plan to bring it with us to Mettricks Woolston, to live on in a new home overlooking the Itchen.

We served breakfast and coffee above Guildhall Square. Hosted the Saints FA Cup winning team. Given away thousands of marathon coffees. Been witness to royalty, protest, celebrations and heartbreak.

We’ve even rescued Paddington Bear several times during his stay.

Somewhere along the way, Guildhall became much more than a café. It became a living room for the city. And that is what makes this so hard.

So why are we closing?

The simple answer is that Guildhall is no longer commercially viable for us and has been putting huge strain on us for a while as we have fought to secure its future. That may sound strange when Guildhall is still a busy café with a wonderful, loyal customer base and streams of visitors every time a cruise ship comes in. But being busy and loved and being commercially sustainable are not always the same thing, particularly right now.

When we took on Guildhall, we were given an affordable rent in recognition of the contribution our small, proudly Southampton independent business could make to the cultural heartbeat of the area, right in alongside the chains and big boys.

We brought the beating yellow heart.

Following Covid, our landlord increased our rent by around 50%. We made it very clear at the time that we worried that level of rent was unsustainable for an independent hospitality business in this location.

We tried to make it work. We tried to grow our way out of it, opening The Attic craft cocktail bar and then Ascapart Bierkeller upstairs.

More recently we have run Guildhall with an incredibly lean team, and the team have done an amazing job of getting the operation back close to break even.

I have negotiated hard with our landlord to return our rent to a sustainable level, but without success.

Alongside the rent, we are still carrying debt taken out during Covid – Bounce Back Loans that helped us survive a period when the Government forced hospitality businesses like ours to close our doors and generated little or no income.

And the last two Budgets have added a huge amount of additional pressure to hospitality businesses through increased employer National Insurance, changes to business rates and increases to the National Living Wage, alongside food and drink inflation and high energy costs.

I have spent much of the past two years campaigning about this, meeting the Chancellor last year to warn her face to face that she was over burdening our industry, meeting with the Small Business Minister earlier this year and most recently backing #VATsTheProblem. At 20% VAT on UK hospitality is the highest in Europe, and countries from Ireland to Germany are slashing VAT in recognition of the big role local cafes, pubs and restaurants play in local communities and high streets. Despite saying the rights things so far this government has only increased the tax burden on our industry whilst other industries rack up record profits.

The cumulative tax burden now facing hospitality in the UK is making it increasingly impossible for many independent businesses to operate the kinds of real world spaces that cities need.

Some people quite reasonably ask what difference reducing VAT would actually make. Well, from now on Guildhall will be my answer.

Guildhall is still busy. people still want it, our customers still love it. Ours isn't a failing café. It isn't somewhere people have stopped wanting to visit.

It is a busy, loved community asset that has reached the point where the combination of rent, tax, employment costs, utilities and historic debt leaves too little margin to make it sustainable.

A reduction in VAT wouldn't solve every problem in hospitality. It shouldn't be used to prop up bad businesses. But it would give good businesses breathing space.

It would allow them to survive and invest, employ people, keep prices sensible and continue providing the places that make our towns and cities worth living in. And I think Guildhall is a pretty good example of why that matters, the signifiant rises in the tax take on our business has been the tipping point for todays decision.

The Cultural Quarter

It is also impossible for us to talk about Guildhall without talking about the place around it.

When we opened here, there was huge optimism about what Southampton's Cultural Quarter could become.

And it absolutely has some extraordinary ingredients: City Eye, JHG, MAST, the Art Gallery and Central Library. So many committed and talented people and organisations who have worked incredibly hard to make this part of the city better. But despite all of that potential, the Cultural Quarter has never fulfilled the promise that was made for it.

In recent years it has, sadly, felt increasingly hollowed out. We have seen businesses and cultural organisations disappear, including many of the neighbours and organisations we were proud to share this part of the city with.

There has been too little investment in the Cultural Quarter and, particularly, in the programming and use of Guildhall Square itself.

It is extraordinary that a space sitting so close to what should be the heart of Southampton can so often feel like an in-between place – neither properly a destination nor properly a civic square. A sort of no-man's-land in the middle of our city.

I know we are not the only people in Southampton's cultural community who find the missed opportunities frustrating. Great city centres aren't just made from buildings. Great cultural quarters don't happen simply because you put cultural buildings next to each other. They need nurturing, investment, programming, creative use of public space, vibrant hospitality and independent businesses.

Mettricks Guildhall has been one small part of that ecosystem for ten years, and I am incredibly proud that we tried to play our part.

Our customers and our team

This is the part I find hardest. For many of our customers, Mettricks Guildhall has been a constant throughout the turbulence of the past ten years. They have been incredibly supportive and we have tried our hardest to repay that loyalty. I know closing Guildhall will leave a scar in our city. And I am genuinely devastated that we cannot keep this special place open for you.

I have tried. Our team has tried. I’m so, so sorry we haven’t managed it.

And to everyone who has ever donned a Mettricks apron at Guildhall. Everyone who has pulled an espresso shot. Given a warm Mettricks welcome. Steamed a velvety flat white. Poached the perfect egg. Cooked a brunch. Washed a mountain of dishes. Opened the doors first thing as the sun rises over the parks. Closed them late when Southampton is coming out to play. Remembered someone's usual order. Looked after a customer who needed a little extra kindness. Helped set up an exhibition. Moved furniture for an event. Fixed something – normally leaking – that wasn't supposed to break. Or simply turned up and helped make Guildhall feel like Guildhall.

Thank you.

Buildings don't create places like this. People do.

Hundreds of people have brought Mettricks Guildhall to life every day over the past ten years, and I am incredibly proud of every one of you.

We set out to create a proper independent coffee house in the heart of Southampton.

Something welcoming, creative, with a bit of Southampton soul. Something that belonged to the city.

I think we did that.

I've made plenty of mistakes over the last ten years. Mettricks hasn't always got everything right and I certainly haven’t. But I don't believe closing Guildhall is a failure.

In fact, I think continuing to put the wider Mettricks business and the jobs of our people at risk simply because this place means so much to me would be the irresponsible thing to do.

We have to make a difficult decision to protect what comes next.

So this isn't the end of Mettricks.

It is the end of an era.

Mettricks Guildhall has been the definition of our business for a very long time. It has shaped our culture, our people and our ideas. It has given us some of the best memories of the last ten years.

We now have to take all of that with us.

We need to make the rest of our business the very best it can be. To look after our people. To strengthen WestQuay, Portswood and Woolston. To continue building Ascapart Coffee from its roastery home in Portswood. To support the development of our bakery at Lyndhurst.

And to keep trying to create the kind of independent, welcoming places that we believe in and that Southampton deserves.

I wish the story were ending differently. I wish we were a long-term part of our city's cultural success story. I wish the economics allowed Guildhall to keep going.

But after ten years, we are going to say goodbye at the end of the day this Sunday.

Not because Guildhall isn’t loved. Not because people stopped caring. And not because we stopped believing in what it could be. But because right now, too often, the economics of running an independent hospitality business simply become impossible.

So to every customer, every member of our team, every artist, musician, campaigner, cultural organisation, community group, supplier, friend and supporter who has been part of the Guildhall story:

Thank you.

So if you are reading this feeling sad about Guildhall, please don't just be sad.

Come and see us this week.

Have a coffee at WestQuay.

Have brunch in Woolston.

Come and see the amazing things we are doing with coffee at our roasters cafe in Portswood.

Buy a bag of our own Ascapart coffee.

Bring someone with you.

Tell someone about us.

Because the best way to support independent businesses isn't to tell us how much you'll miss us after we've gone. It's to keep coming while we're still here.

And if you care about having independent hospitality businesses, cafés, pubs and restaurants in the heart of our cities, please support #VATsTheProblem.

Because this isn't just about Mettricks. It is about whether we want our city centres to be places filled with independent businesses, people and community, or whether we are slowly going to lose the spaces that make them worth visiting in the first place.

To everyone who has been part of the Guildhall story over the last ten years:

Thank you for meeting at Mettricks.

Thank you for trusting us with your memories.

Thank you for the coffees, the conversations, the music, the art, the ideas, the breakfasts, the parties and everything in between.

Ten years was a hell of a run.

And what a privilege it has been.

See you soon, Southampton.

Mettricks Guildhall – 2016–2026.