Escape to Freight Island MD Dan Morris has spoken of a desire to take the pioneering and award-winning food concept outside of its Manchester home.
“We want to see if we can replicate what we’ve done…that energy works everywhere,” Morris told R200. “In the last two years, we’ve understood who we are.”
Escape to Freight Island opened in 2020 and “was born from the pandemic essentially”.
The 3,000-capacity venue has 55,000 square foot of trading space, with between 10,000 and 15,000 visitors per week.
With higher end food operators, a selection of bars, and culture space, the redeveloped freight depot was part of the wider regeneration of Depot Mayfield in Manchester, and houses winter markets, ice rinks and cabaret nights.
“The idea is to enjoy all of these different elements while still getting the core proposition of good food and drink,” Morris said.
The wide variety of activities and experiences at the venue speak to the variety of its founders, who include the team behind Volta and The Refuge, with a background in music and festivals. The combination of different players is what allowed the venue to successfully layer different elements, according to Morris.
The venue is constantly looking for new concepts to keep customers re-engaging with the brand, but balances innovation with reliability when it comes to choosing operators.
“We have a hitlist of different brands, operators, and chefs that we curate ourselves…any multi-concept operator has to remain close to providing something new and something reliable for the customer,” Morris said.
“We felt it was useful to showcase operators that reflect what we are, who we are.”
Having established itself in Manchester, the team is keen to expand the concept to other cities and continue to experiment with its offering at the Manchester site.
“If you sit back and stay where you are and don’t innovate at all in terms of the offer, you’re going to struggle,” Morris added.
