Gallone's closes Abington Street outlet a year after it opened in Northampton

Gallone’s opened a new parlour in Abington Street in August 2015 in a move that was trumpeted by the borough council as a major coop for its newly de-pedestrianised area of the shopping street.

But this week it has closed because the parent company and franchisee for the outlet disagreed over the “vision” for the site, even though it was turning a profit.

Gallone’s co-owner Catherine Gallone said: “It’s with enormous sadness that we’re having to close the Abington Street branch. It proved to be very popular and we would like to thank all the customers who visited over the past year.

“We’d love to see them at our Kingsthorpe branch or at our new site at the Weston Favell Shopping Centre due to open next month

“Our Abington Street team have been wonderful and they are all transferring to elsewhere within the business.

“All children’s parties have been re-booked to our Kingsthrope branch.”

On its Facebook page, Gallone’s said the Abington street parlour would be closed for the “foreseeable future,” though currently the building is stripped bare.

The company operates partly on a franchise basis in a similar way to big brands such as McDonald’s and Starbucks. It owns the Kingsthorpe and Market Harborough parlours outright.

A new outlet is set to open in Bournemouth this Friday, it has just opened a concession next to Madame Tussauds in London and the Weston Favell branch will open in September.

Only last month Gallone’s offered players of the new Pokemon Go app free ice cream in the Abington Street store if they caught one of the digital creatures inside the premises.