{"id":952956,"date":"2026-05-11T16:23:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T16:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/952956\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T16:23:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T16:23:22","slug":"bramley-community-cafe-and-shop-both-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/952956\/","title":{"rendered":"Bramley: Community cafe and shop both close"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"has-text-align-right\"><strong>By John Baron<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A much-loved community cafe and a charity shop at Bramley Shopping Centre have both closed today.<\/p>\n<p>Both the Bramley Community Cafe and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yorkshire.com\/bramley\/shopping\/charity-shops\/bramley-community-shop\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bramley Community Shop<\/a> were run by the<a href=\"https:\/\/find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk\/company\/05738894\/officers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Upbeat Community Interest Company<\/a> (CIC), which was set up in 2006 to earn money to support the work of Bramley Elderly Action. <\/p>\n<p>Over the past 20 years, Upbeat CIC has tried to make money to support the charity, including the sale of aids and adaptations, a gardening project and for the last 15 years an independent community shop selling second-hand goods.<\/p>\n<p>In February 2025, Upbeat CIC took on the lease of a former caf\u00e9 on Bramley Shopping Centre, to open a friendly, affordable community caf\u00e9 where people could learn about all the good stuff going on in Bramley. <\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"678\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/cut-the-ribbon-900x678.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-190876\"  \/>Cutting the ribbon at Bramley Community Cafe in September. Photo: Keef Williamson<\/p>\n<p>An Upbeat spokesperson said the company had to make a \u2018heartbreaking\u2019 commercial decision to close both the shop and the caf\u00e9. <\/p>\n<p>WLD understands the CIC is about to go into liquidation.<\/p>\n<p>They said: \u201cThe cafe and the shop have both been socially successful. However, both the community caf\u00e9 and the community shop have been losing money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s understood the closures have no financial impact on Bramley Elderly Action, which is a separate legal entity, financially sustainable and operationally thriving.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/bramley-community-shop.jpg\" alt=\"bramley community shop\" class=\"wp-image-10890\"  \/>Bramley Community Shop<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019d like to thank staff and volunteers,\u201d the Upbeat spokesperson added. \u201cThe closures are despite all their skilful and hard work. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese are very difficult time in which to trade. We would also like to thank our customers and supporters. Apologies, we gave it our best shot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bramley Community Caf\u00e9 launched a \u00a312,000 crowdfunding appeal in October to support the sustainability of the caf\u00e9 after its original opening date was delayed by three and a half months. The delays caused \u2018serious financial challenges\u2019.  The crowdfunding target was <a href=\"https:\/\/westleedsdispatch.com\/bramley-community-cafe-fundraiser-hits-12000-target\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reached in late December.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sponsored continue<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"608\" height=\"884\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-10-03-at-13.23.42.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-191083\"  \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.specsavers.co.uk\/stores\/kirkstall\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.specsavers.co.uk\/stores\/kirkstall<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By John Baron A much-loved community cafe and a charity shop at Bramley Shopping Centre have both closed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8814],"tags":[207298,230079,223425,748,393,4884,1860,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-952956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leeds","8":"tag-bramley","9":"tag-bramley-elderly-action","10":"tag-bramley-shopping-centre","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-leeds","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116556872209297137","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}