The St Nicholas Way steakhouse shuts to the public on Thursday 3 September, and so does every other Bar + Block. Premier Inn guests keep breakfast and evening meals.

Bar + Block Steakhouse in Sutton town centre closes to the public on Thursday 3 September.

The notice is on the restaurant’s own page. It reads: “We hope to see you again before this restaurant closes to the public on 3 September 2026. In the lead-up to closure, some food & drink options may not be available during your next visit” (Bar + Block: Sutton).

The restaurant is at St Nicholas Way, SM1 1AT, inside the Premier Inn. It is a seven-minute walk from Sutton station and sits alongside the St Nicholas Centre. Its published hours until closure are 11.30am to 11pm Monday to Saturday and noon to 10.30pm on Sunday, with breakfast from 6.30am on weekdays and 7am at weekends.

This is not just the Sutton branch

We checked every Bar + Block location listed on the brand’s own website on 31 August. All 20 carry the identical notice and the identical date. They are Bath, Belfast, both Birmingham sites, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leamington Spa, Milton Keynes, Newcastle, Nottingham, Portsmouth, Whiteley, Winnersh and the seven London restaurants at Aldgate, Hammersmith, King’s Cross, Paddington, Southwark, Sutton and Wimbledon.

The reason sits in a corporate decision made four months ago. Whitbread, which owns both Bar + Block and Premier Inn, published a statement on 18 June restating what it had announced on 30 April 2026. In its own words:

“Whitbread has announced (April 30) that, as part of its proposed new Five-Year Plan, it intends to become a pure-play hotel business focused on Premier Inn… This change will involve exiting all of our remaining branded restaurants, which trade under brands including Beefeater and Brewers Fayre, a number of which will be converted into approximately 600 additional Premier Inn rooms, with the remainder expected to be sold as going concerns.”

The same statement puts a number on the staffing effect. Whitbread said the proposal, which is subject to consultation, “would result in a reduction of around 3,800 roles of a total UK and Ireland workforce of around 30,000”. It said it recruits around 15,000 people a year and expects to redeploy as many affected colleagues as possible. Those are national figures. Whitbread has not published a site-by-site breakdown, so how many Sutton jobs are involved is not on the record.

Timeline of the Bar + Block Sutton closure: Whitbread announces its exit from branded restaurants on 30 April 2026, restates it on 18 June, and all 20 Bar + Block restaurants including Sutton close to the public on 3 September 2026

What happens to the building

The restaurant closes to the public. The hotel does not.

Bar + Block’s page says that “following the restaurant closure, Premier Inn guests will continue to enjoy breakfast, evening meals and drinks throughout their stay”. Whitbread’s 2024 Accelerating Growth Plan, referred to in the same statement, converted over 200 branded restaurants into extra rooms and put an integrated restaurant into each hotel, and Whitbread says that format “would be rolled out to all hotels where there is currently a branded restaurant”.

Whitbread has not said publicly which of the two routes, extra bedrooms or a sale, applies to the Sutton site. No planning application for a conversion at St Nicholas Way appears on Sutton’s planning register at the time of writing.

For the record, the restaurant is leaving with a clean inspection. The Food Standards Agency lists Bar & Block at Premier Inn Sutton with a hygiene rating of 5, the top score, from an inspection on 17 January 2026 (FSA register).

What it means for you

  • You have until Thursday 3 September. After that the restaurant is shut to anyone who is not staying at the hotel.
  • Expect a reduced menu before then. The company’s own notice says some food and drink options may not be available in the run-up.
  • If you have a booking after 3 September, contact the restaurant. The published number for the Sutton site is 0203 727 0227. Whitbread has not published a general statement about existing reservations or gift cards, so ask rather than assume.
  • Staying at the Premier Inn is different. Guests keep breakfast, evening meals and drinks.
  • The town centre still has plenty of options. Our directory of restaurants and pubs across the borough lists what is trading nearby, and there is more on the area in our things to do in Sutton guide.

If you are heading into town in the next fortnight, note that the northern end of the High Street is about to get difficult: the Burnell Road junction shuts on 14 September. The detail is in our Sutton roadworks and travel page.

Sources