STACK Street-Food Venue Moves Closer at Spanish City's Empress Ballroom

Plans to bring a STACK venue to Whitley Bay have moved a step closer, with councillors granting an operating licence for the proposed street-food, bar and live-music destination inside the historic Empress Ballroom next to the Spanish City.

The scheme, led by Newcastle leisure company Danieli Group, would bring the well-known STACK format, familiar from its shipping-container sites elsewhere in the region, into the landmark building beside the seafront. Plans describe a stage for live entertainment, a range of street-food traders and bars, and an external roof terrace looking out over the coast. The development is expected to cost up to £4m and could create around 140 jobs once complete.

For residents, the promise is twofold: a major new leisure venue on the doorstep, and the rescue of a much-loved building. The Empress Ballroom opened in 1910 and once regularly held upwards of 750 dancers before later becoming the Carlton Club bingo hall, then falling empty and into disrepair. A viable new use would return one of the town's most prominent buildings to life and add to the momentum around the restored Spanish City.

It is worth being clear on where things stand. Granting a licence is an important milestone, but it is not the final green light. Planning permission is still to be secured before the conversion can go ahead, and any opening would follow in stages after that. In other words, this is real progress rather than a confirmed opening date, and residents should treat job numbers and timescales as the operators' projections until building work is under way.

Even so, the direction of travel is encouraging for a town seeing steady investment along its seafront, from the completed sustainable route to the newly approved promenade saunas. A STACK at the Empress Ballroom would give Whitley Bay a sizeable evening and weekend draw of its own.

The council's decision on the licence is covered in full by the Northumberland Gazette.