RHS Gardens Bridewater
Vision Commercial kitchens Limited
RHS Garden Bridgewater is a Royal Horticultural Society public display garden based in Worsley, Salford. It is one of the largest gardening projects undertaken in Europe in recent years. The aim of transforming the 154-acre green space is part of the Society’s wider, investment programme to achieve its vision ‘to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place.’
The catering experience was to be a key component of the visitor experience and Vision’s work involved the catering services for the café in the Welcome Building including the kitchen and servery. The offer was to be appropriately priced, of excellent quality, offering adequate choice of product (showcasing garden produce where possible) and excellent customer service. The total covers was established to be 412 covers, 182 internally and 230 externally split between the front entrance external seating area and the decking area to the rear of the welcome building overlooking the lake. The site was to be operational 7 days a week. The visitor numbers were expected to increase over time and so there was a future strategy developed for future kiosks and a further secondary full catering offer, but for now the Welcome Building café would be the only facility. The café needed to accommodate both brief dwell time for coffee and cake, as well as providing hot and cold meal options for those wanting a substantial meal. The facility would also need to cater for out of hours events and functions as well as for staff dining. The aspiration was for the café to become a destination venue in its own right.
Client Satisfaction
The client was extremely pleased as the opening of the project has been phenomenally successful. Before the project began, the client had a 5 year budget based on visitor number and revenues, within the first 2 months of opening they were at 200% of their budget and already hitting year 8 budget figures as it has been that successful. The original intention was for the Welcome Building Cafe to be the only catering facility initially, then in years 2,3 and 4 to develop the food offer further by introducing some kiosks – 2 external and one in the middle of the garden. Then in year 5 to add a secondary full offer. They have only been open since March, but because they’ve been so successful they have had to implement the kiosks as quickly as possible to keep up with demand. The secondary full offer which wasn’t planned until year 5, we are now currently working on with them to be opened a lot sooner than initially anticipated.
Therefore although they are extremely pleased with the success of the project, they wished they had done it on a grander scale initially as they are now having to implement all of the future strategies at a much earlier date. As the opening was delayed to the end of some covid restrictions, it was to be expected that the site would be busy due to people wanting to be out and about, and this was expected to ease off, but it hasn’t as the site has been so popular. We had already outlined the scope of how to expand the catering offer on site and we are now having to implement this a lost faster than it was ever expected to be.
