On the right tracks

In 2007, when I was given a tour around the St Pancras station redevelopment by its co-owner, London & Continental Railways, the place was still very much a work in progress, with builders and heavy machinery scattered across the sprawling site working towards hitting the impending opening deadline.

With a hefty 8,000 square metres of retail and hospitality space being created, there was much talk about how the station’s offerings would be just as attractive to non-travellers as they would be to those passing through to catch a train – including from the new relocated Eurostar terminal. It was going to be very much reliant on this additional throughput, and I got the feeling that management was talking up the prospects for St Pancras whereas, in reality, it was uncertain about whether it would attract the much-needed ticketless grouping. If we build it, will they come?

Jump forward to today, and we can now acknowledge that the people very much did come to St Pancras, and over the years, to other travel hubs across the UK as many of them have enjoyed major overhauls – which have invariably given hospitality and retail much more important roles to play.

Travel hubs have now been a bright spot for retail and hospitality for many years. Network Rail recently reported its quarterly figures for January to March 2024, which revealed a 12.6% like-for-like increase over the previous three months at its 19 stations across the UK. In comparison, retail sales over the same quarter increased by only 2% on a like-for-like basis, which highlights both the strength of travel retail, but also, no doubt, the growth seen in food and beverage within these travel hubs.?

The influx of new operators is helping fuel this growth. The enormous BrewDog at Waterloo station is one such major addition to this site, but such is the customer appetite/thirst in Waterloo that JD Wetherspoon has this week opened a ￡2.8m pub very close by the BrewDog. The Lion & Unicorn is just the latest Wetherspoon to hit a station location as it follows its outlet at St Pancras, which took over part of a Marks & Spencer store, and the recently opened pub positioned just outside Euston station.

But it’s not all about these giant London-based hubs, which have been enjoying ongoing buoyant sales from rejuvenated hospitality propositions. Independently owned businesses have also enhanced the travel food and beverage landscape. The Head of Steam brand was a true pioneer of station bars under founder Tony Brookes, but when the Sheffield Tap opened in 2009 on platform 1b in the steel city, it arguably set the benchmark for station pubs. It opened in the former Victorian refreshment rooms, thereby taking advantage of some beautiful original architectural features, and the company followed this up with other station bars in York and Harrogate, as well as Euston.?

On an even smaller scale, The Draughtsman Alehouse sits in the heart of Doncaster station, on platform 3b, and such is its quality offering of beer, hot drinks, cakes and snacks that I’ve been a frequent visitor who has mostly dropped in when not having a train to catch. This behaviour is not uncommon for me nowadays, and I have become a regular customer at The Parcel Yard in King’s Cross as well as the Euston Tap and Doric Arch. A recent trip to Suffolk/Essex also had me visiting the bar at Manningtree station, but the one I’d regard as a must-visit is the Station Buffet Bar on platform 4 at Stalybridge, Greater Manchester.

The transient nature of having a pint and a quick bite to eat in a travel hub has always been appealing to me because I like the sense of urgency these locations generate, which translates into a buzz and frisson. But until St Pancras and other major redevelopments cleaned up the existing architecture, improved the offerings and extricated the historical seediness at train stations, they were never going to be mainstream meeting points. They were more about distress visits by a captive audience.?

The hesitation that London & Continental Railways and Network Rail had during the redevelopment of St Pancras station in attracting non-travellers as well as ticket holders to retail and hospitality has proven to be unfounded, and its success has undoubtedly provided a pointer for many other major investments. King’s Cross was hot on its heels and has also been a great success.?

Whether the growth train can remain on the tracks is uncertain, but what I can be sure about is that I will continue to often choose transport hubs for my food and beverage choices above other locations, irrespective of whether or not I have a ticket in my hands.

Glynn Davis, editor of Retail Insider

This piece was originally published on?Propel Info?where Glynn Davis writes a regular Friday opinion piece. Retail Insider would like to thank Propel for allowing the reproduction of this column.

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