About The Café Area

The Crescent's café area is on the Ground Floor, immediately accessible via Main/only Entrance, and with windows facing onto University Road, an arterial route into the Belfast City Centre. Alongside customers attending Crescent activities and events, the café attracts nearby students, passing trade, and tourists. The customer area is a flexible space, seating up to 40 depending on set-up.

What we’re looking for in a provider:

• To lease the café space day and evenings (currently Monday- Saturday), with an offer of hot and cold drinks, and a range of foods.
• Someone who will maximise the location and the footfall, enhance the experience and related spend of visitors, delivered in a manner that complements our community ethos and values.
• We want to give customers the best possible welcome and hospitality experience, in a way that complements our creative activities.

The Model

We expect an agreement to be based on a minimum term of 12 months (with 2 x 12 months options to extend, based on an annual contract review).

The Crescent is not offering any guaranteed income to the successful provider. However please note that we run regular Courses/repeat activity, meaning that there’s at least 800 customers through our front door each week.

We anticipate running a licensing agreement, based on a monthly fee payable. We are however open to different models being proposed.

The Information we’ll ask you to share 

If there’s a mutual interest in proceeding, below are some of the pieces of information we will ask you for. You don’t need to share all this in writing in the first instance, just get in touch/express interest via email or phone.

1. Company/individuals background:

• History, ethos, values.
• Briefly describe history of operations, vision and values; what makes you unique. Types of and locations of existing operations, why you are attracted to this opportunity, what value add you bring.

2. Alignment with Crescent values

• We are very interested in the wider positive benefits you can potentially bring by delivering this service, for example, by giving back to communities and/or offering more opportunities for charities, social enterprises, and voluntary groups. We are interested in your environmental credentials and approach to sustainability.

3. Proposed Café/hospitality services

• Summarise key features of proposed services; approach to visitor experience.

4. Proposed Resources and Management Information

• Who are the key personnel – experience/qualifications. The Crescent expects to have oversight and lots of engagement but is not directly running operations.

5. Commercial offer/model

• The Crescent is providing the ground floor facilities, assets, and access to an established location and footfall, that will allow the catering provision to establish and flourish. It is at the sole discretion of the interested party to choose to use a fixed income model or some form of income sharing model or a mix of both. The Crescent has an open mind and will evaluate all options on their merits.          

 

About The Crescent

The Crescent is an Arts Centre, a registered charity, and a company limited by guarantee, in receipt of investment from Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Belfast City Council.  Our Mission is to be a vibrant and welcoming hub where everyone can experience the power of the arts and develop their creativity. Our Vision is a society which actively values and promotes creativity and the arts for everyone.

Our beautiful listed building is on the busy University Road, in the Queens Quarter, South Belfast. We are perhaps best known for our Courses and Workshops: each week we welcome over 100 tutors who deliver activities to 800 customers per week. The Crescent also has an events programme (music, dance, literature), and runs the annual Belfast Book Festival (June).

We are home to 10 creative companies (office space), host a range of Festivals and events, and hire our beautiful spaces to a range of companies and individuals, in our fully accessible facilities. Visit CrescentArts.org to see more.

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