Pizza Hut Ashford

Ashford’s new Pizza Hut Restaurant

Pizza Hut Restaurants has renovated their restaurant on the Eureka Leisure Park at Ashford in Kent.

In their largest ever UK refurbishment, the owners of Pizza Hut Restaurants, Rutland Partners, have invested £785,000 into the development as part of a £60 million nationwide refurbishment and restructuring programme, which has already rebranded over 100 restaurants across the UK. Working on the project are the London and Birmingham-based hospitality designers Harrison.

Embracing the brand’s American heritage, the designs for the new restaurant incorporated red and blue leather seating, neon light fittings and unique artworks. With the view of building the brand’s attraction as an evening destination, as well as a daytime one, lead designer Aoife Kenny Fallon – Senior Designer at Harrison – focused on a more sophisticated and interactive décor. “We used a nice mix of character oak and reclaimed softwood to emphasise the ‘hut’ feel and mixed these with more polished surfaces to add sparkle and movement to the scheme.”

A key aspect and main challenge of the design was to keep it broad so that it would not alienate customers. To do this, the restaurant was given a stand-out feature wall that takes centre stage and intimate booths at the front of the site to generate more of an evening vibe. There are still the convivial party and family-style seating areas that are universal for all Pizza Hut restaurants. “We introduced an attractive external area which captured the fun and vibrant essence of the new brand direction,” commented Aoife.

Another key aspect of the design was allowing the project to transition from day to night, with the focus on creating a restaurant and cocktail destination suitable for evening custom. Introducing a large cocktail bar allowed for a much more adult atmosphere whilst the continuation of the Ice Cream Factory still kept it accessible for children.

The Ashford restaurant features a high-tech lighting system that can be changed to influence the atmosphere when transitioning from day to evening. Reclaimed timber finishes and carefully selected fabrics, along with lacquered steel, combine to transform the site into a more sophisticated place to dine. With support from Rutland Partners over the complete design overhaul, it enabled Aoife and her team to create a contemporary and vibrant restaurant with broad customer appeal.

Concept Bars

Operating for 26 years, the well-established company Concept Bars specialise in Stainless Steel fabrication of bespoke bars. Their lengthy amount of time in the industry has meant the company have built up an impressive list of clients, including D&D Restaurants, Prescott & Conran, Skibo Castle, One Aldwych, 2850, Great Northern Hotel, Casual Dining Group, Coppa Club, Chivas, Curzon cinemas, Oriole, Fogg’s Tavern and Mayfair Hotel.

Concept Bars were also involved with the Pizza Hut Ashford project too, providing the manufacture of the Stainless Steel under bar system. Over recent years, the company has been involved with Pizza Hut over many of the sites providing a variety of services – showing how flexible their offer can be.

“At Concept Bars we pride ourselves on supplying and installing Concept bespoke in house manufactured bars to exact requirements, coupled with the best equipment for our clients.”