Selected work / Figgo
Seeing the opportunity.
Shaping the experience.
Understanding the trade before shaping an adaptable food-and-drink concept: a meeting place for a mixed audience, before and after events.
Client
Figgo
Sector
Hospitality concept
Our role
Commercial concept · proposition · experience · operating model
A commercial opportunity in underused space
Figgo was one example within our wider work with the ICC, exploring how spaces could be occupied and used more effectively. The owner wanted to develop new bar and restaurant offerings. Early meetings with the leadership team began with why: what should the space achieve, what mattered commercially and who did it need to serve?
Developed as a venture-capital-funded concept in partnership with the ICC, the work began with understanding the trade. That insight set the strategy before we shaped the offer, identity and operating model.
Different audiences. One coherent offer.
The venue needed to appeal to business people, commuters, families, friends attending a show and conference delegates. An ambition to move upmarket had to be tested against that mix: quality mattered, but so did approachable pricing, clear expectations and efficient service.
Earlier attempts had struggled to match the offer to the trade. Conference delegates and passing visitors brought different needs from repeat diners: limited time, transient demand and a need for quick turnaround.
We examined the food offer, price point and value on the plate, with menus and staffing designed around the pace of the location.
The proposition through to the operating model
We developed the investment concept across proposition, style, atmosphere, food and menu design, staffing, financials and business case. Each decision needed to support the customer promise and the commercial requirements.
The space also needed to adapt: a meeting place before and after events, a venue for functions and a food-and-drink offer for everyday passing trade. The configuration had to support those different uses.
Staff values and a sense of ownership were part of the concept, intended to attract and retain the people needed to deliver the experience.
The concept made visible
Video description: A silent, nine-second animation. Oversized white letterforms reveal a canal-side scene, then resolve into the Figgo wordmark and the line “Where tastebuds meet”.
A framework for the opportunity
Figgo gave the owner and leadership team a joined-up concept for the space: audience, offer, experience and operation considered together.
The available material documents concept and business-case development. It does not establish opening, occupancy, revenue or trading results.