Rick Stein’s café in Cornwall has shut its doors permanently amid mounting losses and a customer slump in the chain’s restaurant empire.
The eatery closed on Wednesday with a spokesman adding this week that another one of the chef’s struggling food branches in Wiltshire could also be shutting for good.
Rick Stein Café sits at the heart of Padstow – dubbed ‘Padstein’ because of the number of businesses Mr Stein has in the town: 13 in the last 50 years.
The Rick Stein Group confirmed the café’s closure is permanent and three members of staff had been redeployed.
It comes as Mr Stein’s restaurants, hotels, shops, cookery school and online business saw revenues tumble last year – with his businesses calling on Chancellor Rachel Reeves to ‘ease pressure’ on employers amid Labour’s tax raid.
In a recent interview Mr Stein railed against the Chancellor’s Budget.
He argued: ‘Because the economy is not looking too good, people aren’t going out as much, so the one thing you don’t want to do is impose a heavy tax on the sorts of industries that are actually producing stuff.’
A spokesman for the Rick Stein Group told Cornwall Live: ‘We can confirm that we have permanently closed our small coffee shop with the three-strong team offered alternative positions with the business.
Sitting at the heart of Padstow, the Rick Stein Café is dubbed ‘Padstein’ because of the number of businesses Mr Stein (pictured) has in the town – 13 in the last 50 years
The Rick Stein Group confirmed the café’s closure is permanent and three members of staff had been redeployed. The café is pictured
The celebrity chef opened his first dining business in the town in 1975 – but over the decades has increased his footprint with multiple restaurants, cafés, delis, cookery schools, and other business interests
‘Rick Stein’s Michelin Bib Gourmand Café remains firmly open serving the same coffee from Cornish roasters, Origin Coffee, alongside a lunch and dinner menu featuring dishes inspired by Rick’s travels and passion for fresh, simple ingredients, many of them sourced locally.’
The closure of the Café also comes as the Rick Stein Group is currently in consultation with a view to possibly close down its restaurant in Marlborough, Wiltshire.
A spokesman for Rick Stein Marlborough said: ‘We can confirm that we are proposing the closure of our Marlborough restaurant and are consulting with the team to explore whether this can be avoided.
‘Our other restaurants, and rooms, continue to trade well, but this particular site has not delivered the same level of return.’
The celebrity chef opened his first dining business in the town in 1975 – but over the decades has increased his footprint with multiple restaurants, cafés, delis, cookery schools, and other business interests.
Such is his grip on the North Cornwall town it has been renamed ‘Padstein’, with gift and bookshops full of his merchandise.
The town is home to 2,500 people but that number typically doubles in the summer as second home owners and tourists flock there.
Locals say Stein’s influence has been both a blessing and a curse – boosting the tourist trade but also hiking prices and stifling local businesses.
Mr Stein was one of many hospitality business owners to rally against Ms Reeves’s Autumn Budget , warning that the tax hike has come at a time when people are going out less due to the current state of the economy
Stein has even been the target a ‘terrorist’ group known as the Cornish National Liberation Army who once threatened his restaurants claiming they were hurting local people through driving up living costs.
House prices have skyrocketed in the town as its popularity grew with the average property being sold over the last year costing more than £750k – higher than London.
And Stein’s growing monopoly has been described by one visitor as ‘medieval’ – likening flocking holidaymakers to ‘brainless sheep.’
But at the Seafood Restaurant (Padstow), revenues dropped by £1.3million to £18.9million in 2024, while pre-tax losses widened from £204,000 to £459,000.
Including sales from the chef’s other company, Steins Trading, total revenues across his restaurant business were down 5.4 per cent to £30.4million.
Ms Reeves’s decision to increase National Insurance contributions (NICs) made by employers sparked a major backlash from the hospitality sector last October. The £20billion-a-year raid is one of the biggest single tax-raising measure in history.
From April 2025, NICs increased from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent, while the level at which employers start paying NICs was reduced from £9,100 to £5,000 per year.
Mr Stein was one of many hospitality business owners to rally against Ms Reeves’s Autumn Budget, warning the tax hike has come at a time when people are going out less due to the current state of the economy.
Nearly 90,000 jobs have been lost across the hospitality sector since the Chancellor announced her sweeping tax raids.
