In pictures: Inside Waitrose’s first new convenience store in six years

 Waitrose opened the doors to its first new convenience store in six years today in Hampton Hill, South West London, marking the upmarket retailer’s 47th Waitrose-operated convenience shop.

The new store, which features dedicated areas for ‘dinner for tonight’ and beer and wine, forms part of the grocer’s pledge to open up to 100 new convenience stores over the next five years in a £1bn investment programme.

In August, Waitrose executive director James Bailey said new store openings would represent a shop “tailored to the local area” and designed “in mind of how customers like to shop”.

Other features include a fresh bakery area with products such as bread, cookies and croissants, as well as a hot drink station serving the Nero Roasting Company’s americanos, lattes and cappuccinos, with tea available too.

The Hampton Hill store is also the first of Waitrose’s convenience sites to feature an on-demand hatch, allowing delivery riders to make collections more easily, advancing the supermarket’s partnerships with Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat.

Earlier this year, Waitrose opened the doors to its newly refurbished John Barnes, Finchley Road store, which was one of the first shops to receive a makeover, as it embarked on one of its “biggest periods of expansion”.

Like this shop, the grocer has introduced a number of self-service checkouts to the Hampton Hill site.

However, at the opening of the Finchley Road site, retail director Tina Mitchell affirmed: “Manned tills are still really important to us. We’re not in the camp of just going down the self-service route, because we want to be able to serve our customers in whatever way they want to be served.”

The new store comes as Waitrose is ramping up its partnership with Welcome Break, targeting further new locations with stores opening on the A14 in Spaldwick, Cambridgeshire this month and on the M1 in Rotherham, South Yorkshire as part of the operator’s new motorway services in January. A third location will open in 2025, with more planned if successful.

Additionally, Waitrose has now reached more than 100 Shell forecourt shops it supplies throughout the UK, with plans to add further new locations in 2025.