AN INVITING SEA CHANGE

Dining out

Coastline connoisseurs Haven came to us with a tricky F&B dilemma. At any one time, there were up to 8,000 holidaymakers on their holiday parks with just one main catering facility, leading to long wait times and a poor dining experience for guests. This meant 90% of guest dining occasions were happening in the local areas away from the parks.

Our ultimate challenge was to get more guests to dine with Haven on their parks, which meant creating a more compelling reason to do so. However, more than a few associated difficulties existed. For starters, how do you cut down wait times? How do you compete with the wider choice available away from the park? How do you serve up an experience that keeps guests coming back for a second helping? Just a little food for thought then.

2 RESTAURANTS + 1 PUB + 1 CAKERY + 5 POP-UPS =
THOUSANDS OF HAPPY CAMPERS

Home advantage

After much scribbling and strategy-driven head scratching, we had a two-fold solution. First up, create a brand-new F&B concept that would transform the huge existing catering facilities on site into an exciting multi-offer bar and restaurant. Aptly named Coast House, this new facility would bring the best of the high street straight into the parks. But we weren’t finished there. Our second solution was to take the food straight to the guests around the park, with a series of brilliant pop-up street food concepts – from sweet treats to that all-important holiday staple of fish and chips.

Coast House was positioned as the home of seaside dining, serving up three deliciously different dining experiences (plus an all-day bar) under one roof. For the meat-lovers there’s a grill restaurant serving up amazing rotisserie chicken, while pizza fanatics can dig into all-you-can-eat slices for one great price. And we didn’t forget those with a sweet tooth, as the cakery is the place to go for huge slices of home-made cake and indulgent ice cream.

Nautical but nice

The branding for Coast House reflects the incredible seaside settings of Haven’s holiday parks, taking inspiration from the surroundings with nautical tones and patterns inspired by the sea itself. The logo was designed to be familiar and friendly, using stencil-like letterforms that nod to the numbers and names we’re all used to seeing on boats, with the name in lowercase to make it feel as warm and accessible as possible.

At the heart of our interior design scheme were three simple words – magical family dining. It’s why the first thing guests see when they head inside is our VW campervan host stand. No boring wooden plinths on our watch. Then there’s the treehouse booths surrounded by sculptured trees and accompanied with a spot of birdsong.

The material palette combines highly textured washed and weathered finishes, from coastal tones inspired by the sea to deeper burnt tones inspired the grill, all mixed with pops of electric colour and high impact materials to dial up the fun factor.

Top of the pop-ups

Naturally, we couldn’t resist having a little fun with the pop-ups too. We converted Citroën H-Vans into Beach Burger and Cook’s Fish & Chips vehicles… developed a new Seaside Treats container concept… crafted an outdoor dining experience called

The Terrace…and created a fleet of vintage ice cream vans to bring new dining experiences to guests all over Haven parks. Fortunately, after all that work we were already in the perfect spot for a well-earned rest.