COOPLANDS BAKERY, SECRET GARDEN

LOCATION: DRIFFIELD

Secret Garden Restaurants Re-Branding Projects. Cooplands Bakers have over 10 restaurants through-out North Yorkshire, many have been trading for over 15 years. Having been involved with the re-branding of the bakery shops for some time it was felt that I understood the customer base and values of the Coopland’s family run business.

Towards the end of 2011 I was asked to prepare a design scheme for the up-dating of the existing Secret Garden Restaurant in Driffield. The original design was based on an Italian Garden with roman statues, mosaic tiles, ornate garden gates, mock stone arches, and in some cases white trellis and pagoda structures.

While Cooplands were looking to freshen up the restaurants they were not looking to move completely away from the theme, and so my task was to gently revise and modernise the cafes / restaurants without a dramatic shock to the customer or client. Initially the task became a de-cluttering exercise with objet-d’art, statues, stained-glass panels and fake plants all being omitted from the original scheme.

The introduction of Warmer colours and simpler finishes along with oak timber pagodas providing a more dramatic feature to the interior, were some of the elements brought into the new scheme. The counter fronts and screens were revised with green panelling and new timber furniture along with bench seating covered in brighter fabric was introduced as an up-date the old metal furniture.

Driffield turned out to be a successful project and it was then decided to roll out the new scheme across other restaurants. Refurbishment work has been completed at Scarborough, Louth, Bridlington, Pickering and conversion of The Old Post Office in Hull, with turned out to be a major project in its own right.