Regatta Dundee Store Closure Sees Hotel Chocolat Move In

Closing-down sale signs went up on 16 April 2025. The store shut by late April. A new tenant had already been found before the shelves were cleared.

Wednesday 16 April 2025: Signs in the Window

Shoppers walking through the Overgate Centre that morning found large closing-down sale signs across the Regatta window on the ground floor. Up to 70% off all stock. No prior announcement. No statement. No explanation on the brand’s website.

The Courier, which broke the story, confirmed no official closing date had been set and that Regatta had given no public reason for leaving. The store had opened in 2022, taking over the unit left vacant after Oasis went into administration during the pandemic. It traded for roughly three years before the sale signs appeared.

By late April 2025, the store had closed. Regatta has not issued any public statement about the Dundee closure.

Reactions online were immediate. “There won’t be anything left here soon,” wrote one shopper. “Another one bites the dust,” said another.

The Brand Behind the Store

The accounts filed at Companies House are clear on one point: Regatta was not closing stores out of financial distress.

Regatta Great Outdoors is a privately owned Manchester business, run by the Black family since Lionel Black purchased a small wholesale operation called Risol Products in 1977. His son Keith has led the company since 1981, with sister Jo Black serving as buying director. The group sits under parent company Risol Imports Ltd and includes Craghoppers, Dare2b and Hawkshead. It trades in more than 55 countries and employs over 2,000 people.

In the financial year to January 2024, Risol Imports posted pre-tax profits of £8.3 million, up from £5.6 million the year before. That is a 48% rise. Turnover sat close to £293 million.

The Dundee exit followed the closure of the Chatham, Kent store in February 2024. That was the only occasion Regatta went on record about shutting a location:

“Regatta did not take the decision to close the store at Chatham’s Dockside Outlet Centre lightly. The closure comes following challenging footfall in the centre and to coincide with the store lease coming to an end.”

No equivalent statement was made about Dundee. The chain still runs more than 60 UK stores. This was a single unit exit, not a brand in retreat.

What Was Actually Happening at the Overgate

Regatta’s exit landed in the middle of the biggest overhaul the Overgate Centre had seen in years.

Frasers Group purchased the shopping centre from Legal & General in March 2023 for a reported £30 million. That deal set off a full reshaping of the tenant mix, major construction work and a run of new lease signings across the centre.

The Frasers Department Store

The centrepiece was a three-floor, 60,000 sq ft department store built inside the former Debenhams unit, which had stood empty for nearly four years. It opened on 6 June 2025 under the FRASERS name, bringing Sports Direct, USC, GAME and Evans Cycles under one roof alongside a beauty hall carrying Charlotte Tilbury, Dior Beauty and Creed. More than 80 jobs were created. Around 100 shoppers queued before 11am on opening morning.

Overgate Centre Manager Malcolm Angus had described the project as “one of the largest shop fit-outs Dundee has ever seen” and “a transformational moment for Overgate, for the city, and for the wider region.”

Sports Direct and USC had been running their own closing-down sales in their separate Overgate units in the weeks before Regatta’s signs appeared. Both were consolidating into the new department store, not closing permanently.

New Stores and Strong Numbers

Beyond Frasers, Clarks opened in May 2025 and Mango followed in June, taking a ground-floor unit of nearly 4,000 sq ft. Superdrug expanded its existing store by more than 35%, adding Beauty Studios and a nurse clinic. By the end of 2025, sales across the centre had risen by more than 30% year-on-year. Tenant occupancy stood at 90% as of December 2025, according to asset manager Sovereign Centros.

Full detail on the Frasers opening is available via the Dundee & Angus Chamber.

Who Is Moving Into the Former Regatta Unit

Hotel Chocolat, and it will be the brand’s first ever store in Dundee.

Seven days after the closure story broke, The Courier reported the unit had already been secured. Hotel Chocolat was advertising for store manager, assistant manager and sales advisor positions in the city by April 2025.

The company was founded in 1993 by Angus Thirlwell and Peter Harris and now operates 126 UK stores and 40 in Japan, alongside cafes, restaurants and an online subscription service. The Dundee store forms part of a wider UK expansion plan.

As of March 2026, no opening date has been confirmed. The unit was taken before Regatta had cleared its stock, in a centre that was posting 30%-plus annual sales growth at the time.

UK Retail in 2025

The Dundee closure was one of tens of thousands across Britain that year.

The Centre for Retail Research recorded 17,349 store closures across the UK in 2025, breaking the previous record from 2022. An estimated 201,953 retail jobs were lost. The House of Commons Library puts total UK retail employment at 2.6 million in 2024, with annual retail sales worth £517 billion.

The cost pressures driving closures were well documented long before Regatta’s signs went up:

• Employer National Insurance rises from April 2025 added an estimated £2.3 billion in annual costs to the sector, according to the British Retail Consortium
• The National Minimum Wage rose to £12.21 per hour from April 2025
• Average business rates bills more than doubled, hitting £8,613 per shop

British Retail Consortium Chief Executive Helen Dickinson said in December 2025: “The number of retail jobs is now at a record low, and more have been lost in the last year than are employed in the fishing and steel manufacturing industries combined.”

Closing individual stores against that cost backdrop was a common decision across the sector in 2025. Regatta was one of hundreds of brands to do so. The group’s finances, as the Companies House filings showed, were not the reason.

Where Things Stand Now

The Overgate’s ground-floor unit is confirmed for Hotel Chocolat, with the brand already through the recruitment stage. No opening date has been set as of March 2026, though when it does open it will be the first Hotel Chocolat in Dundee.

Shoppers who relied on the store for outdoor clothing can order through the Regatta website with UK home delivery, or use the store locator to find the nearest branch.

The centre itself heads into 2026 with Frasers, Mango, Clarks, Nomination, Clintons and an expanded Superdrug all trading. Occupancy is at 90% and sales rose more than 30% across 2025. Those numbers were not there when Regatta first opened in 2022.

The closing-down signs came down. A luxury chocolate brand is fitting out the same unit. That is the full story.

Sources: The Courier, closure story | The Courier, Hotel Chocolat confirmed | Centre for Retail Research | House of Commons Library | Dundee & Angus Chamber