At Yorks Cafe on Stratford-upon-Avon’s High Street, I slide into one of the last remaining stools by the bar. The narrow room is an homage to 2010s industrial-chic decor. Lightbulbs hang bare from suspended metal fittings, grey limewash paint daubs the walls. Tendrils from a couple of limp looking spider plants dangle over bags of coffee beans.
This cafe is all that remains of a once-promising West Midlands coffee kingdom. Now three sister branches in Birmingham sit abandoned, bailiff notices posted in formerly well-dressed windows. Yorks was dubbed one of the ‘world’s best’ coffee shops; its premium brews and bougie brunches won plaudits from the Guardian and good-natured ridicule from comedian Joe Lycett.
The jewel in the Yorks crown was its 100-seater flagship branch at the swish new Paradise development on Chamberlain Square. When it opened in 2024, it seemed a major coup and a local success story: an independent coffee shop, nestled among big-name, national hospitality brands like Dishoom and Albert’s Schloss.
But less than 12 months later, a sign appeared in the window of Yorks Paradise. “Dear customers. We are having to close while we resolve a few issues. More announcements to follow”.
No announcements followed and the issues are yet to be resolved. Out of seven Yorks locations opened in 13 years, the Paradise flagship was the sixth to close (not including a short-term pop up in Leamington Spa). Yorks' Stratford branch is the lone survivor. Now investors want answers from the chain’s charismatic and elusive owner, Simon York Ford. In his wake is an international trail of bankrupt businesses — publicly available records show that Yorks cafes alone are saddled with debts of at least £750,000 owed in unpaid tax, bills and staff wages.
How did such a promising venture, with so much goodwill and hype, go bust? The Dispatch has spoken to multiple people with intimate knowledge of Yorks' rise and fall, including two current shareholders, with a combined 33% stake, four ex-employees, and Simon Ford himself. We uncovered the story of an entrepreneur with a history of dreaming big and ending up in even bigger debt.
Due the ongoing liquidation of his companies, Ford declined to comment on the allegations in this story. He did, however, tell The Dispatch: "I recognise that the insolvency of the Birmingham businesses has had a significant impact on former employees and others connected to the company. A thirteen-year business employing many people will inevitably affect lives when it ends, and I very much regret the impact caused."
Alex, an investor with a 5% stake who doesn’t want us to use their real name, says: “I think Simon is, at his heart, a good person. [But he] has dug himself into a situation and rather than confront it, he kept digging, and then he got a bigger spoon and a bigger spade, and then a JCB, and he just kept going.”
Seeing potential
In 2012, Birmingham’s coffee culture was not what it is now. Baristas were in short supply. But one man who could confidently rustle up a cortado was a tall red-head, named Mark*. Then aged 29, he was that relatively rare thing: a young server for whom hospitality isn’t a stop gap, but a career. Mark had worked his way up from agency staffer to front-of-house. He was passionate and wanted to progress.
So, when Ford approached him with the opportunity to be the manager of a new cafe, he grabbed it with tattoo-covered hands. The way Mark recalls it, Ford came into the cafe where he was working and offered him the job there and then. “I was a bit naive, and he was excitable,” Mark tells me today, over a flat white. But he was ambitious and wanted a new challenge. He accepted.
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