The Airs & Graces was the second Dodo Pub Co site in Cheltenham, taking over an existing pub a short walk from the racecourse.

The project involved a complete rethink of both the business and the building, from naming, positioning and identity through to the interior, layout, customer experience and rollout.

The challenge was to make a very small pub commercially viable while giving it a character of its own and a clear connection to the wider Dodo family.

The existing pub had become difficult to operate successfully. The ground floor was divided into a series of small rooms, an oversized bar occupied much of the usable space, and the kitchen was upstairs, making the operation unnecessarily awkward.

The layout was completely reworked. Moving the bar created space for around 60 covers downstairs, compared with roughly 20 previously. The kitchen moved into the former ground-floor toilet block, the toilets went upstairs and the upper floor was opened up as additional pub space, creating room for around another 40 covers.

A further 30 covers were created outside, making much better use of the site as a whole.

One of the bigger challenges was making the upstairs feel like a natural extension of the pub rather than a separate room people had to be persuaded to use. Interior graphics, signage, murals and other visual wayfinding were used throughout the building to draw people upwards and connect the two floors.

The result was a much harder-working building without needing a bigger footprint.

We named The Bottle of Sauce in 2016, and the name was well received. So when the opportunity arose to open a second Dodo pub in Cheltenham, a stone’s throw from the racecourse, it was almost impossible not to run with The Airs & Graces.

Bottle of Sauce is Cockney rhyming slang for horse. Airs and Graces gives you “races”.

It created a subtle link between the two sites without making them feel like copies of one another.

That connection became the starting point for the identity and gave the new pub a name that worked both within the Dodo brand and in its particular location.

The redesign transformed what had been a cramped, difficult footprint into a much harder-working pub, with around 60 covers downstairs, a further 40 upstairs and another 30 outside.

Alongside the physical changes, the new name and identity gave Dodo a second distinct Cheltenham venue while maintaining a subtle connection to The Bottle of Sauce.

More than simply refreshing an existing pub, the project brought together brand, space and operation to make considerably more of the building that was already there.

Capabilities
Brand Strategy • Positioning • Naming • Brand Identity • Creative Direction • Customer Experience • Hospitality Space Design • Interior Design • Layout Planning • Operational Flow • Signage & Wayfinding • Print & Merchandise • Website & Digital • Brand Rollout • Launch Support

Credits

Client
Dodo Pub Co

Design Leadership, Brand Identity & Graphic Design
Leo Johnson

Commercial Build
Concorde BGW

Photography
Dodo Pub Co