Sheffield Mecca Bingo – Flat Street

Flat Street was one of the last great post-war Odeon cinemas, and it ended up spending far longer as a bingo hall than it ever did showing films. The building opened in 1956 as the Odeon Cinema, a new generation of picture house built for widescreen films and modern comforts just as television was starting to eat into audiences. Architecturally it was pure 1950s Modernism, all clean lines, broad glazing and minimal ornamentation, a world away from the ornate Gaumont Palaces of the 1930s, with a huge auditorium seating around 2,300 designed for excellent sightlines rather than decorative spectacle. It only lasted 15 years as a cinema, closing in 1971, before reopening almost immediately as a Top Rank Bingo Club, later becoming Mecca Bingo Sheffield. The enormous raked auditorium suited bingo perfectly, needing little structural change to accommodate hundreds of players comfortably.

Over its 55 years as a bingo hall it gained Mecca Max electronic terminals, a sizeable gaming area, bar and diner, disabled facilities and regular themed events, and its city centre location beside Sheffield Interchange and the Supertram meant it drew a different crowd to the out-of-town clubs, with many players arriving on foot or by public transport as part of a regular routine of shopping, eating and bingo. It never disguised its cinema origins either, with Historic England cataloguing it as a significant surviving former Odeon even while it operated as Mecca. The club closed in 2026 as part of Rank’s wider programme of closures, with customers directed to nearby clubs in Chesterfield and Wakefield, bringing to an end a run where it proved a far more successful bingo hall than it ever was a cinema.

Other Lost Halls In The Area

• Sheffield Mecca Bingo – Penistone Road
• Sheffield Mecca Bingo – Queens Road