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THE 

FITZ.

Hospitality Design

The scope of this project was to create a fast food takeaway outlet for a well-established non-food brand, while also providing the appropriate branding and takeaway dish. The chosen brand was Builders Warehouse, a hardware store national chain brand in South Africa that would be paired with the ‘Gatsby’ roll, a South African dish associated with construction.

The Gatsby was created in 1976, in an Athlone fish shop owned by Rashaad Pandy, who wanted to feed a few day workers that worked on his property.  The dish is a foot-long roll that has been filled with hot chips, sauces and a variety of choice fillings. The name of the roll was adopted after the day worker, named Froggie, had just seen the ‘The Great Gatsby’ film and said the roll was “a Gatsby smash.”  

Builders Warehouse is a brand that bears a lot of nostalgia - a seemingly shared memory of going to on a Sunday, dad’s needing a DIY kit, mum’s wanting to look at paint or fixtures for upcoming renovations and the kids running around, bored out of the minds, waiting to be rewarded with a boerewors roll [a South African version of a hot dog]. And so the mood I aimed to create within this space was a sunny and friendly experience that embodied the brand of Builders Warehouse, and this shared memory, but allowed for some separation from the parental company.

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