The Kitchen at Putney Leisure Centre is closing. After a decade serving the community, and five months fighting to stay, owner Jeannine Angel has reached a settlement with Places Leisure and Wandsworth Council, and will leave the café she has run since 2015.
All three cafés operated by Angel’s family across Wandsworth’s leisure centres will shut within the coming month.
“We have now reached a friendly agreement, and as part of it we will be leaving The Kitchen at Putney in one month,” Angel told Putney.news.
The fight began in May 2025, when Places Leisure conducted a disputed inspection and closed The Kitchen without notice. The operator called it a “misunderstanding” but then asked Angel to sign paperwork that her solicitors later described as “legally incoherent and fatally defective,” a document that would have stripped her of statutory tenancy protection. She refused.
As we first reported in October, the dispute went unresolved for months while the leisure centre’s £24 million refurbishment proceeded around her.
By November, Angel had served formal legal notices on Places Leisure and Wandsworth Council, seeking a 15-year new lease under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. More than 500 people signed a petition supporting her. Her solicitors at Blacks Legal said the attempts to remove her were “a transparent pretext to clear the sites for a major, multi-million-pound redevelopment project.”
That legal route is now closed. The agreement includes a confidentiality clause, limiting what she can say publicly. She was clear, however, that the outcome was not a defeat.
“It was an amicable agreement and, in the end, we did not come out of it worse off.”
Places Leisure confirmed the departures this week:
“Following the conclusion of ongoing discussions between Places Leisure, JDSR Ltd, Suangel & Co Ltd, and Suarez & Co Ltd, all parties have mutually agreed to end their partnership. Over the coming month the businesses will fully cease operations at the three sites. The decisions have been made to ensure the best outcomes for our customers and all parties involved. As the matter has now been concluded no further comment will be made.”
What comes next
Cllr Paul White, the council’s Cabinet Member for Environment, told a public meeting in June 2025 that Putney would receive a “new café” as part of the refurbishment. He did not respond to questions from Putney.news put back in November. The council did not respond either. Neither has commented since.
Places Leisure has said no further comment will be made. Council and Places Leisure teams have been doing walkabouts at the leisure centre in recent weeks. What, if anything, replaces The Kitchen has not been announced.
Ten years. Venezuelan food in a Putney leisure centre. Five-star hygiene ratings at all three sites. More than 500 people signed to keep her there.
“Thank you for all the support you gave us during this difficult time. Over the past months, what we went through was incredibly challenging for our family and our business.”
She says she did not come out worse off.
“This is my community. This place feels like home.”
I appreciate there is some sympathy for the owner. But as a local resident who uses the leisure centre I would add a different perspective. The food and coffee was just not very good and the cafe looked very dowdy. I am glad the leisure centre is being redeveloped and that a (hopefully better) new cafe is being opened.