Self-Proclaimed Lifestyle Store Shuts Down with Unpaid Creditors

Updated 02.08.2018: With further information on the nature of the closures.

Sans Pere, the coffee shop, patisserie, homeware store, architect and estate agent, has closed all three of its sites in the capital after just over a year of trading. A former employee has told Eater London that the company owes fifteen members of staff money, and is being taken to an employment tribunal — the business also owes various creditors. Eater understands that over £3,000 is outstanding, with dairy supplier The Estate Dairy, tea supplier Lalani and Co and coffee supplier Assembly all owed money. Eater also understands that the business is now being liquidated, with a view to landing fresh investment for a new site. It remains to be seen whether those creditors will be paid.

The original site on Great Eastern Street opened in June 2017, and has now been closed for over a month; Broadway Market opened 23 November 2017, while the third site — within Hershesons hair salon on Berners Street in Fitzrovia — opened only two months ago, on 1 May. Instagram reveals that the group were working on menu development for Broadway Market less than a month ago — the company made no announcement of the Great Eastern site’s closure in the meantime. The original site was known for its good quality patisserie and viennoiserie, as well as an adventurous coffee offering led by 2017 U.K. Barista championship runner-up Will Pitts, who is no longer associated with the company.

Barnaby Goff is the son of James Goff, who founded the estate agency Stirling Ackroyd. Sans Pere — “without father” — was in part spurred by Goff’s father’s death from cancer.

Social media accounts for the previous brand have been deleted. The company’s website — littered with broken links — sheds some light on what is happening. A piece of text on one of two ‘Our Story’ pages says:

We started as an open patisserie within a store in Shoreditch with everything made on site in-front of your eyes. Sadly the building is now being demolished and far sooner than expected. This forced the closure of our other stores in Broadway Market and the West End. With it a return to absolute focus on our product — patisserie.

The exact meaning of the promised return is unclear. Confusingly, a web search for ‘Sans Pere’ reveals a second ‘Our Story 2.2’. Here, Barnaby details how his “unceremonious firing” was the catalyst for developing and opening Sans Pere; a link below leads to information about that teased return: Sans Pere is moving a few doors down the road, and will be opened by mid-September.

Sans Pere’s owners did not return a request for comment.