Does your restaurant need a refresh?
Creating a successful eatery is about much more than dreaming up a five-star menu.
Think ambiance, comfort, lighting, how the space flows – and importantly the quality of the restrooms!
With a new year comes a time for reflecting on where you are and looking at how you can improve in the future, and GS Contracts is here to help.
While it is still a worrying time for the hospitality industry, some restaurateurs are taking this enforced pause on everyday life to rethink their space so they can come back better than ever once some sort of normality returns.
In fact, some of our customers hadn’t even got to experience what normal is like before needing to implement change.
Take for example The Athenian, a Greek street-food outlet which was a couple of weeks off opening its brand-new flagship restaurant within the arches of London Bridge station when the first national lockdown hit.
With the new reality of restricted numbers and social distancing, plans were redrawn to make sure customers could be served safely. We helped to install a contact free self-check-out system on iPads along with all the safety features necessary for our current times, including floor markings, dividing screens and distanced seating.
While The Athenian was pushed to make changes due to the pandemic, other well-established clients have had the benefit of time to identify tweaks to their set up which will create a better customer experience.
Tombo Cafe, an independent chain of three family-run Japanese cafes across London, did exactly that. Back in 2009 we fitted out the first Tombo in South Kensington, and during the first national lockdown we returned to do a redesign and refresh of the space.
Key to the project was increasing the space available for customers and improving the flow throughout the café. As well as moving some preparation elements to the back of house we were also able to reduce the counter size from around 70% of the front area to just 40% which provided much more space for customers, while still giving staff the work area they need.
At the same time, we stripped the unit, ripping out and replacing all plumbing and wiring, and completed the new design, with new flooring, new countertops and fresh decoration throughout offering a total refresh in just ten days!
Sometimes we are blown away by the creative solutions that designers come up with to transform little used spaces and help them stand out from the crowd – and we were delighted to work on one such example at Bombay Bustle.
With the design vision from the talented team at Fabled, our job was to create a new subterranean bar and dessert area in the basement of the restaurant, which could also be used for parties and events.
The result is truly spectacular with pale pink plaster walls, brilliant-cut glass screens, deep burgundy leather upholstery and a timber panelled ceiling. On top of this we also managed to manufacture and install our first ever DJ booth! Best of all we completed the fit out in just two weeks, showing just what can be achieved in a short time with minimal disruption.
If you’re looking to make changes to your café, deli, shop or restaurant then contact us. Give us a call on 01206 793053.
