Esplanade Restaurant Limited — the group behind St. Lawrence staples Old Spaghetti Factory and Scotland Yard — came to us looking for a branding agency for restaurants to help shape a new concept for a space on The Esplanade. The original brief was simple: a cocktail bar for a new space on The Esplanade. We listened, then pushed back a little. The space was too big for one concept. Our recommendation was to split it, and from that conversation, two venues were born.

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Taking cues from the neighbourhood's history as a 19th-century rail hub, we helped develop the concept of a golden-age train travel experience — one where Eloise plays the dining car and Bar Cart, the hidden speakeasy tucked just beside it, plays the bar car. That meant starting at the very beginning: finding the names, building out the brand language, and creating the moodboards that would set the tone for everything to follow.

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From there, we designed the restaurant branding system, including signage, menus, staff uniforms, and other touchpoints guests interact with before they've even ordered a drink. We coordinated photo and video shoots to capture the atmosphere we'd helped create, developed a social media strategy to build anticipation ahead of opening, and provided ongoing support through media events during the launch and beyond.

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What we're most proud of isn't any single deliverable — it's the relationship. ERL trusted us to shape something from the ground up, and we showed up as a genuine creative partner at every stage. That kind of collaboration, where listening is as much a part of the work as designing, is what leads to spaces that actually feel like something.

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