The Royal Parks offers a wide variety of quality refreshments for park visitors by granting licences to suitable companies to run catering outlets in the parks.
Licence lengths vary but are usually between seven and ten years, depending on the amount of business the park generates and the level of investment required from the caterer.
Visit our Procurement page to see if there are any open tenders.
We expect our caterers to provide a range of good quality refreshments to park visitors at reasonable prices. Environmental sustainability is key to The Royal Parks and all caterers are expected to have strong sustainability policies and practices.
Opening hours vary according to the time of the year and the opening hours of the parks but we expect cafes to be open all year round.
Cafes and Restaurants in Permanent Buildings
Cafes and restaurants are buildings in the park, which have been built as, or adapted for use as, cafes or restaurants.
We will require the caterer to make a substantial investment in refurbishing the premises to a standard and in a manner acceptable to The Royal Parks.
Mobile Units / Kiosks
We require our caterers to purchase and maintain any mobiles unit and to decorate them in a manner acceptable to the Agency. Caterers would be expected to run a number of mobiles in a park - we do not currently award licences for individual mobiles .
Events Catering
Catering for events is managed by the event organiser in the case of large events or by the concessionaires currently operating in the relevant park.
How the licences are awarded
When an old licence is nearing expiry, The Royal Parks will advertise in the trade press, on this website and/or the Official Journal of the European Community as appropriate, inviting expressions of interest from caterers wishing to tender for the new concession.
All those who express an interest will be considered, and then a selection will be invited to tender. We do not guarantee that all who express an interest will be invited to tender. Unfortunately we are not able to keep lists of interested catering companies.
We do not usually invite companies to tender if the value of the annual turnover of the contract exceeds one third of the annual turnover of the bidding company.
The following caterers currently operate within The Royal Parks: