Greggs forced to close stores due to IT glitch

Some stores unable to process payments

Greggs bakeries the length and breadth of the UK have been forced to close this morning after an IT issue left some stores unable to process payments.

The UK's premier bakery chain, famed for its sausage rolls and the steak bake couldn't take card payments in some of its stores this morning, meaning those stores had to revert to cash only payments or close their doors.

In what must have felt like a throwback to the pandemic, some branches asked customers to place orders outside via the Greggs mobile app or Uber Eats, before food could be handed to them.

A statement from Greggs said: "We are currently experiencing issues accepting payments in our shops." It added: "We are working to resolve this as soon as possible."

Greggs fans were not amused and have taken to X to express their dissatisfaction.

This is the latest in a series of technology issues that seem to relate to card payment processing.

McDonald's restaurants in several countries including the UK, Japan and Australia were hit by a similar issue last week which the fast food chain said was caused by a configuration change in third-party software.

Sainsburys and Tesco both also experienced card payment issues over the weekend, which subsequently caused the cancellation of online grocery deliveries.

Whether this recent glitch was down to cyberattack or has a cause similar to the McDonald's outage is yet to be confirmed. Some have speculated on an EPOS update fail.

A spokesperson for Greggs said in a statement this afternoon:

"We've resolved a technical issue that affected tills in some of our shops earlier this morning. All affected shops are now trading as normal. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused to our customers."