An Exciting Greek Delicatessen Experience!

Kostarelos New Concept Store

With already six successful Kostarelos retail stores in Attica, just a few days ago a new one opened downtown Athens with an entirely new exciting concept!

The Client & The Project
Kostarelos family produces exceptional cheese and dairy goods over three generations, and selects quality products of other small Greek artisan producers. This product variety is offered through their chain of six successful retail stores they have in Attica. With this concept we have managed to upgrade its offering to a distinctive Greek Delivatessen, combining the shopping of Greek delicacies with sit in or take away special dishes, created with these products. For the menu, we introduced to the owners the famous Greek chef Chryssanthos Karamolegkos and his team that prepared all the tasty recipes, which include a great variety of sandwiches, salads, dips, platters of exclusively Greek cheese and cold cuts, as well as some excellent dessert proposals. All menu suggestions have been prepared with products of the family’s own cheese factory and other products and ingredients carefully selected from Greek artisan producers that can be found at the grocery.

Truly supporting our holistic approach, Kostarelos family trusted our team with a complete set of services: concept strategy, architectural design, branding, customer experience, operational design and communications strategy.

Concept Strategy
The main concept objective was to create a welcoming and everyday store experience, where one can be introduced to the pleasures of authentic Greek flavors. Most importantly, this new concept will be the basis for the company’s next steps towards its further development, in Greece and abroad, with both owned and franchised stores. The initial markets of interest for their development are Europe, GCC and USA. For additional franchise details (available from 2016 onwards), please fill in the form here.

Architectural Design
Our design team created a beautiful cozy environment of unique style with details that highlight the company’s values and heritage. The stunning wall covered with wooden pieces of the actual beech barrels that the company uses for the cheese aging in their factory, the big pendant lights that resemble the metal hoops of those barrels, and the floor tiles that make a strong reference to the Greek color palette.

Branding
To subtly separate the sitting area from the retail area, without designing something too ‘loud’ and modern, we composed a new pattern for the food area, formed by icons that remind of cheese, cold cuts, wheat, plate and the plaid of traditional Greek tablecloths. The whole synthesis and the way it is applied in the store and other branding applications, like the packaging, looks like it is embroidered rather than graphically designed. Always loyal to the overall brand strategy of creating a contemporary and at the same time traditional style, we chose to use a blackboard paint for the menu, giving the store a rougher character.

Operational strategy
This was also part of our services. Our team supported the investors in setting the pricing policy, as well as the operational strategy of the concept in order to maximize return on investment of the new delicatessen store, which included among others the customer service, the employees and the delivery.

Communications strategy
Taking into consideration that the next steps of this project is the roll out the new concept in the Greek market, as well as its international development with new stores and offering its products in new markets, we have prepared and implement a solid communications plan, aiming to strengthen the existing position and awareness in current markets, and then making Kostarelos an internationally recognized and trusted brand.

For franchise details (available from 2016 onwards) click here.