Metropol

I found the mother of all Tesco concept stores yesterday in London's Charing Cross. It's a small unit that specialises in lunch time meal deals on one wall and hot food on the other. But get this, the back wall is home to a freaking burrito counter! As in a proper Chipotle operation. The shop was just called Tesco though it had a little yellow sign saying burrito bar on the sticky-out sign. I was the only one in there so I'd be interested if the lunchtime office trade will be enough to justify this staying open all the time.

Some info here. Seems they have another one in the city, doing fancy sandwiches.

Reminds me a little of Sainsbury's Fresh Kitchen, which didn't last long.

nodnirG kraM wrote:Harris + Hoole was a coffee chain in its own right before Tesco's interest, is that right?

I'm not sure the precise order of events but Tesco were involved pretty early on, if not before they opened their first branch.

WillPS wrote:

nodnirG kraM wrote:Harris + Hoole was a coffee chain in its own right before Tesco's interest, is that right?

I'm not sure the precise order of events but Tesco were involved pretty early on, if not before they opened their first branch.

According to the Harris + Hoole website, Tesco invested in the business from the start.

http://www.harrisandhoole.co.uk/company/our-story

M&S are having a 5 days of summer event, I've never seen so many food stalls promoting new ranges. I tell you this it works the amount of new products which are running out where high.

M&S are now rolling out their fabulously classy sans-serif font "MS London" onto the SELs. Looks amazing. As does their full revamp of every product that appears to be going on, for the first time in years.

The branch of my dreams.

No sadly I had been woken by a chap who decided to rev his ridiculous motorbike right outside my window. tsk @ him

My local Lidl has demolished itself and is being rebuilt from the ground up. I saw one in Norfolk doing something similar last year - I think they are better off spending their money on a modern logo, a name change and some decent edible food

stu wrote:My local Lidl has demolished itself and is being rebuilt from the ground up. I saw one in Norfolk doing something similar last year - I think they are better off spending their money on a modern logo, a name change and some decent edible food

Lidl appear to have a thing about demolishing stores and starting again as they did that to one of the south London stores near me.

Martin Phillp wrote:

stu wrote:My local Lidl has demolished itself and is being rebuilt from the ground up. I saw one in Norfolk doing something similar last year - I think they are better off spending their money on a modern logo, a name change and some decent edible food

Lidl appear to have a thing about demolishing stores and starting again as they did that to one of the south London stores near me.

Yep, my local one has also recently reopened after being gutted, expanded in to the adjacent unit and pretty much rebuilt.