Chester Grosvenor to close as new operator takes over

The Chester Grosvenor, one of England's few five-AA-red-star hotels, will close on 30 September after operator Bespoke Hotels ended its tenancy over safety concerns raised earlier this year.

The Chester Grosvenor closure.

The Grade II-listed building on Eastgate Street has traded as a hotel since 1865. Bespoke Hotels took over its running in 2015 and built its reputation on the two-Michelin-starred Simon Radley restaurant, since closed, and a wine cellar regularly cited among the country's best.

Our ambition is to reopen as the Chester Grosvenor, creating new employment for the city.

Grosvenor Rural Estates, the freeholder, confirmed the closure follows structural and safety issues that made continued trading untenable under the current operator. It did not detail the exact nature of the defects.

Martin Property Group, a Belfast-based developer, has been named as the new operator and plans a two-year refurbishment before reopening under the Chester Grosvenor name.

A two-year rebuild ahead

The company previously converted the former Bedford hotel in Belfast and took on the former Virgin Hotels Glasgow site. It also bought the freehold of the former Grosvenor Shopping Centre in Chester in 2022, giving it an existing footprint in the city.

"Our ambition is to reopen as the Chester Grosvenor, creating new employment and strengthening Chester's tourism economy," said Nicholas Dobbs of Grosvenor Rural Estates.

Paul G Martin, of Martin Property Group, said: "We understand the responsibility that comes with being the long-term custodian of a building of this importance."

Staff face an uncertain gap

Bespoke Hotels has not said how many of the roughly 200 staff at the property will be retained, redeployed to its other hotels, or made redundant when the doors close this month.

Chester's tourism board has flagged the closure as a blow to the city's hospitality economy ahead of the winter season, when the hotel typically hosts wedding and corporate events booked years in advance.

The changeover echoes a wider pattern in British hospitality this year, where operators unable to fund repairs have handed distressed sites to new owners, as with Open Restaurant Group's purchase of Wreck Bistro from Gary Usher.

A reopening date has not been set, though Martin Property Group said it expects work to begin once the site is vacated at the end of September.