Our work for Mayan Kitchen

Proof-of-concept branding for restaurant investment

25 May 2009

Mayan Kitchen, a company promoted by an Irish-American business consortium, plans to open an innovative Dublin city-centre restaurant offering contemporary Mexican-inspired cuisine based on a proven business model.

Our project included a detailed positioning evaluation of the fast food sector and the developement of a unique positioning for the new restaurant that would support its business proposition at the upper end of quality fast food - above McDonald's and Subway, but somewhat below Milano's.

To assist the Mayan Kitchen company in a funding round we worked with their management team to realise the potential of their brand offering. Working from a proposed name for the restaurant we created a proof-of-concept brand identity and a suite of supporting visual collateral that helped potential investors to understand the core brand DNA of this novel restaurant proposition and to visualise the future customer experience.

 

 We advised the Mayan Kitchen team on sourcing a retail design consultancy to develop concepts for the interior design of the restaurant. A mock-up restaurant was created in the National Yacht Club, Dun Laoghaire, and was dressed with an impressive array of branded material to establish the ambiance of the proposed restaurant. This proved to be the basis of a successful investment event.

 

This was an interesting project that demonstrates the power of brand design to aid start-up companies in their early investment stages by making their core corporate vision tangible to key audiences.