Taste Cafe planned for Sainsbury's Waterlooville as recruitment begins
A live Compass Group recruitment notice says a brand-new Taste Cafe is being prepared at Sainsbury's Waterlooville, although no opening date has been announced.
A new cafe is being prepared inside Sainsbury's Waterlooville, according to a live recruitment notice from Compass Group UK & Ireland.
The catering company is recruiting a full-time manager for a brand-new Taste Cafe at the Hambledon Road superstore. The listing describes the Waterlooville role as a start-up opportunity and says the manager will build a team, oversee daily operations and help bring the new site to life.
No opening date has been announced on the recruitment page, and the current Sainsbury's store listing does not yet include a cafe among the services at the site. Residents should therefore treat this as an opening in preparation rather than a business that is already trading.
What is planned
Compass's job advert says the new cafe will serve coffee, freshly baked pastries and food. It identifies the employer as Compass Group UK & Ireland and the operating division as One Retail, which runs food and retail services in busy public locations.
Taste Cafe is a newer in-store format being introduced at Sainsbury's branches. In an official company update earlier in 2026, One Retail described its first Taste Cafe in Carlisle as the start of a wider rollout. That update says the format was designed to give existing supermarket-cafe customers a familiar experience in a more contemporary setting and uses coffee from Caffe Nero's Aroma brand.
The Waterlooville recruitment notice does not publish a local menu, prices, seating capacity or opening hours. Those details should not be assumed from other branches because the offer and operating arrangements may vary by site.
Where residents will find it
Sainsbury's Waterlooville is on Hambledon Road, PO7 7UL. The supermarket's current store page lists its regular opening hours as 8am to 10pm from Monday to Saturday and 11am to 5pm on Sunday. Those are supermarket hours, not confirmed hours for the planned cafe.
The same page lists facilities including accessible toilets, baby changing, seating, wheelchair access and free Wi-Fi. Waterlooville.co has not confirmed which of those facilities will be available within or directly beside the cafe.
The plan is locally significant because an in-store cafe would add another daytime food-and-drink option at the Hambledon Road supermarket. The operator, format and details of the new service should be confirmed before publication.
What remains unconfirmed
Compass or Sainsbury's has yet to confirm the planned opening date, exact location within the store, menu, opening hours, accessibility arrangements and whether the Taste Cafe branding will be used at launch.
The current evidence supports the existence of a planned cafe and active manager recruitment. It does not support a precise launch date or claims about local prices, jobs beyond the advertised manager role, or the final customer offer.
Have we missed something? Contact the Waterlooville.co team.