6 days Ago By [email protected] (Andrew Dixon)
Up to 25 new jobs will be created by the new-look Eastgate Shopping Centre food court which could be open before the end of this summer. Work is under way on changes that are designed to make it a go-to destination when people are looking for somewhere to eat in the city centre. Loch and Larder’s shock closure in February - two years after a £2 million investment - has created an exciting opportunity for Cru Hospitality to take over the management of the area.
“It’s a great opportunity to do something,” said Scott Murray, chief executive of Cru Hospitality, which operates a variety of city centre venues including Whitehouse, Scotch & Rye and Prime Steak & Seafood. • • “In terms of our other businesses we always try to do something a bit different to the norm. We try to bring in concepts we’ve discovered whether they be from Edinburgh, Glasgow, London or even New York, Chicago or further afield than that.
We’re quite excited about the opportunities for the food court. We’ve been given carte blanche to bring a concept and for the next couple of months that’s really what we’re focusing on. “I’d like to think this is a nice reset for everybody.
I’ve lived in the area all of my life and I’ve been using the Eastgate food court over the years and there have been success stories there and others that haven’t been as successful but we’ve got a really good opportunity now to look back on what has worked and what hasn’t. We’ve done a lot of research with people locally, including questionnaires and surveys, even with Eastgate staff, as well as the public and we’ve managed to come up with some offerings that will hopefully be well received.” Promising to bring “fresh energy, exceptional service, and a high-quality dining experience” to one of the city’s key retail destinations, he stressed changes were still in early stages.
“It’s a significant investment, for sure the biggest we’ll have worked on since we started the business 15 years ago,” he said. “It needs to be considered as a destination in its own right. It’s unlikely to be a Saturday night date night venue but I think people have to want to go there and it has to be in their repertoire of where we go to eat.
The food court needs to be a reasonable option and that’s what we’re trying to create. “It has to work for everybody. I remember years ago a lot of schoolkids would use it at lunchtime, office workers would use it slightly later and then in the afternoon young families or multigenerational groups would use it for coffee so we need a space that works for them all because the market has changed so much in the last 10 years that you can’t rely on just one market segment now to make your business work.
“We’ve always said you focus on what you’re good at and don’t try to be all things to all people but the market is very much a case where you have to offer something to all people and that’s going to be the key to making it a successful venue in its own right again.” With a wealth of industry experience, the team at Cru Hospitality is aiming to have an emphasis on quality, variety and an inviting atmosphere. “It’s important that what we deliver is different from what was there before,” Mr Murray said.
“It’s quite a vast area at the moment and to soften that we would need to compartmentalise it a bit, create sections so it’s not just one colour and not just one texture, and create different areas for different things - an area that’s great for if you’re just there for a coffee and a quick bite, an area that’s more relaxed and you want to stay a bit longer and do some remote working. It’s really working with all the different customer types we can expect and creating an area, menu and service level that suits each of those as well.” A job advert, seen last month by The Inverness Courier, described a “brand-new Eastgate Food Court - an exciting new street food concept with a buzzing bar offering, all under the new management of Cru Hospitality”.
Mr Murray explained: “We’re not creating a street food concept in the traditional sense like you would find in the Victorian Market. They’ve done that very well and we wouldn’t even be attempting to go into competition, so what we’re trying to create is something a bit different, but we have to have a concept that is going to attract more people and you can’t do that by having just a burger concept or just a pizza concept. We’re going to have to go wider than that to attract the numbers that we’re going to need to attract.
“You look at the footfall for the Eastgate Centre and what we have to do is give people a reason to stick around and have something to eat, rather than then going and searching somewhere else.” He also does not intend for it to directly compete with any of Cru’s existing businesses. “It wouldn’t be sensible for us to cannibalise our existing businesses, so to take Scotch & Rye and carbon copy it into the Eastgate wouldn’t be a particularly good move for instance, but I think we can take learnings from Scotch & Rye, Whitehouse and Prime and understand how people like to eat, drink and experience these locations and use that to drive forward what we finally implement.
“It really is a blank canvas with no play book. We’d really be keen to work with the retailers and put on events. It’s a great space for events - it’s big with good sightlines and acoustically not too bad.
Working with retailers could enhance their profile, enhance the profile of the food court and the Eastgate Centre as a whole is a real opportunity.” Shopping centre manager Chris Kershaw said: “We are massively excited to be working with Cru. It will be a very positive move for the food court and the centre, we are looking forward to seeing it land.
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