Issues:

• Waygood, a charitable organisation providing affordable art studios and promotional support to budding artists in the North East was moving offices and studios to an old historic building being renovated in the centre of Newcastle.
• Part of the renovation included a proposed space for a courtyard and street front café bar to serve the Waygood staff, artists, visitors and the general public either visiting or just passing.
• Waygood required a business feasibility study to determine the café bar development costs and the likely income and profit returns in order to establish the viability.



Solutions:

• Review Consultancy was instructed to complete a “stage one” feasibility study and development strategy for the proposed Café Bar.
• The study included a review of all local potential competition, assessing the range of offers, tariffs, opening times, promotions, standards, etc.
• It established what stakeholders and potential customers were looking for and calculated the likely customer footfall and demographics.
• Two existing local café bars were engaged in the research to add credibility to the business plan figures.
• The research was used to prepare a service offer (Vision) that was used as the basis of tentative franchise quotes from two external catering companies and compared against an in-house operated business plan.
• In addition tentative equipment quotes were gathered for the facility development itself based on a draft design to fulfill the proposed service Vision.
• The study concluded with the creation of various costed business models and options for the Waygood Board to consider.



Outcomes:

• As a result of the very historic nature of the building and the resulting high development costs and the extreme pressure on the overall budget, the Waygood Board decided to postpone the café bar development to concentrate resources and budgets on their core development of the required offices and studios.



The research and detail of the work carried out by Review Consultancy was of a very good standard. The feasibility report was very clear and assisted and supported the Board in unfortunately deciding the immediate postponement of the project with a review of this decision in some 12 months time. It was stated that whilst the decision was disappointing, it was the right decision for Waygood and their circumstances at the time."


Lisa Tolan, Waygood Centre for Artists