The food hall operator had been expected to open a Boxhall venue in Bristol, with discussions for the site going back as far as June 2021. In 2022 it put out a call for traders with plans to open next year, and the site was still understood to be opening in 2025, but it has now walked away from it plans.
The company was also due to make its Midlands debut last year with the opening of a 17,000sq ft site in Birmingham’s Digbeth area, but that will also now not go ahead.
Speaking to Restaurant’s sister title MCA, Boxpark CEO Matt Snell, who joined the company in March last year, said that the Bristol and Birmingham sites did not fulfil the business’ core site selection criteria because they were not near transport infrastructure, on a busy high street, or near stadia or event spaces.
“A change in leadership was deemed to be required, and with anything like that, there’s always a bunch of sorting out to do, and we’ve had step away from leases or sites that we were going to do,” he said.
“I didn’t feel confident in those sites and the whole site selection process. It made me really nervous, so we had to find a way out.”
Snell said that with each new Boxpark site costing between £5m and £7m, it represented a “massive financial commitment”.