Jensen Retail Group designs a delightful ‘cafeatery’
Jensen Retail Group designs a new place to meet and eat containing a gastronomic food
experience which combines a café, restaurant, and cafeteria for Meyers Contract
Catering. The ‘cafeatery’ is placed at BLOX - Denmark’s new house for design,
architecture, and urban development.
Jensen Retail Group developed the identity and the understanding of Meyers Contract
Catering’s concept, including the navigation around the food area. “It was important to
create a navigation, a system of how to queue using physical elements so that it was
easily understandable. The menus have got big screens over each kitchen, and is created
in the same design language as the rest of the cafeatery”, Creative Director, Thomas
Jensen, says.
Jensen Retail Group created a place to eat and meet that is both accessible for the
people who work in the BLOX building, but also for the public to stop by. BLOX EATS is
fexible in both design and decor. Everything in the cafeatery is usable for diferent
situations; private dining, meetings, cofee breaks, and much more.
Developing Meyers Contract Catering’s identity and the understanding of the concept
also meant matching Meyers’ DNA with the architecture of BLOX. BLOX is signifcant,
industrial, and very un-Danish. For their building, BLOX used diferent kinds of expanded
metals and because of this material, you can even almost see the ceiling. “The material is
what it is. It's not wrapped up, it's raw. Something with edge, something a little diferent”,
Design and Architectural Assistant, Signe Holm Rasmussen, says.
Everything at BLOX is big and dominating, and this has inspired Jensen Retail Group in
designing BLOX EATS. Materials as steel and iron, gray and black concrete, oak tree and
glass with green color complements the BLOX building and plays perfectly against the
water outside the cafeatery’s windows. The interior is all custom made and appears raw
and untreated so that one can really see the design. It is what it is.
Meyers Contract Catering developed the concept themselves. Meyers has high ambitions
- they even created a kitchen changing from week to week; three kitchens serving three
types of food every day. This was the perfect starting point for Jensen Retail Group, who
has designed the interior of the cafeatery, so that it complimented the concept.
“We had a good cooperation that was very open. Meyers Contract Catering was really
responsive, and we got together on translating their concept into a nice and cool place to
be. Meyers Contract Catering have been brave, and it has been really exciting for us to
create an identity for such a visionary way to cook”, Creative Director, Thomas Jensen,
says.