Newcastle’s park cafes’ shock closures branded “absolute disgrace”
Written by Amelia Anderson on 2nd February 2026
Two park cafés in Newcastle city centre are closing with the council blaming an increase in running costs.
The café at Paddy Freeman’s park was closed with immediate effect on 27th January and staff have been transferred over to the Exhibition Park café which will close from the 9th February.
Sign at Newcastle’s Exhibition Park cafe
One staff member, who asked to be kept anonymous, said: “It’s an absolute disgrace that they’re shutting, it’s going to have a negative effect on the community, especially on the park runners that we have every single week, there’s now no facilities for them to go to.”
He continued: “It’s an absolute goldmine in the summer, but they (the council) don’t want to wait that long, they want to cut their losses even though they have just brought on a lot of employees”.
A spokesperson for the council said: “There are times of the year where they (the cafes) will do well but this hasn’t brought in enough income to make them financially viable.”
Another staff member, who asked to be kept anonymous, said: “I was extremely shocked and definitely blindsided, I can’t say that there wasn’t a suspicion that this was going to happen, but I was still really surprised and let down.”
The council have said that the thirteen staff members affected will be given opportunities to apply for alternative roles in the council. However, a staff member said: “All they have done is offered us really minimal hours in school kitchens, which for a lot of the staff here, it just doesn’t work at all.”
Other staff members told Spark Sunderland that regular customers had visited the Exhibition Park café and expressed how disappointed they were that the sites were closing.
The cafes were run by the charity Urban Green until March 2025 when Newcastle City Council took over, however, a council spokesperson said that despite investments into the cafes they “haven’t achieved any significant increase in sales”.
A review into the cafes’ performance over the last ten month has found a “continued decline in their popularity, and an increase in running costs.”
The review also found that closure of the cafes could save the taxpayer over £200,000 a year.
Council officials said: “We love our parks and we recognise that the cafes bring additional value to our park users. However, their ability to generate the income needed to cover their costs is heavily impacted by weather, seasonal demand and increasing operating costs.”
They added that: “The buildings will remain part of the parks service, as we continue to develop the wider service. In the future, we will review this and consider potential opportunities to bring the buildings back into use.
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