UK gaming cafe chain SideQuest closes three of its four venues

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 26/11/2025

SideQuest, a chain of gaming cafes across the UK, has announced the permanent closure of three of its four venues.

Its Elephant & Castle, Coventry, and Canterbury locations will cease operations on Sunday, November 30th.

Now, only SideQuest’s Charing Cross location in central London, near Covent Garden, will remain open.

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SideQuest began as an esports café brand called Wanyoo with the London Charing Cross location opening in January 2019 as its first UK outlet.

The venue features high-end gaming PCs, PlayStation 5s, Nintendo Switch consoles, and a bubble tea bar.

The SideQuest venues have not only acted as social spaces but have also been used to host esports bootcamps and grassroots tournaments.

The Canterbury venue only opened last year after SideQuest closed its Westfield location but did not survive long.

SideQuest also a different venue in Leicester back in August last year, meaning the company no longer has any presence in the Midlands.

SideQuest announced the triple closure on its Instagram page, saying:

“These venues were never just gaming spaces. They were meeting points and memory-makers.

“Thank you for the incredible energy, the unwavering support, the late nights spent with us, and the amazing tournaments we shared.”

SideQuest also stressed that customers who had existing bookings at the now-closed venues should reach out to customer service.

In addition to these closures, earlier this year the company made changes to Sidekick, a gaming companion app and sister project of SideQuest, due to concerns over child safety.

The SideKick app has since rebranded to not use the same branding as SideQuest and is now a web3 trading platform.

No official reason has been given for the SideQuest closures, but it has been a challenging year for social gaming spaces in the UK.

A similar chain of gaming spaces called Belong, associated with gaming retailer GAME, has mostly shut down after having around 23 venues in the UK before COVID-19.

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

In my seven years of esports writing, I've introduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I'm most proud of the latter.

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