Ashall Projects were working with Blackpool Council on the feasibility of reimagining the old Post Office as part of the wider regeneration of the town centre.

Auden was appointed to carry out market research, F&B strategy and concept development for the ground floor food and beverage spaces.

The brief was clear.

Create a restaurant that could stand on the high street in its own right. Create hotel spaces that served guests, but also gave locals, students and the wider community a reason to visit.

This was not about adding F&B to a hotel.

It was about giving every part of the building a job to do.

The opportunity was to raise the bar without losing the town.

Blackpool was changing. Regeneration, new investment, stronger conference demand and the upcoming Multiversity were shifting the role of the town centre.

The F&B had to catch up.

But this could not be a summer-only strategy. The building needed to work in February, on a Tuesday, after check-in, between lectures, before a show and during a wet afternoon when people still needed somewhere to go.

That meant creating reasons to visit that felt useful, not forced.

For locals.

For hotel guests.

For students.

For workers.

For day trippers.

For the town itself.

The answer was not to fill the building with more food and beverage.

It was to make the building earn its place again.

Each space needed a role. Each offer needed a rhythm. Each idea needed a commercial reason to exist.

The building had volume, but space without purpose is just square footage. The layout was challenged to move functional areas out of prime commercial space and create zones with stronger reasons to visit.

This became the filter. Not the most expensive. Not the safest. The best version of what the town could understand, use and come back to. Better coffee. Better casual dining. Better hangout. Better social energy.

The concepts could not survive on peak season alone. They had to work for the people who live, work and study in the town. If locals care, tourists feel it.

Walter’s Canteen was the bold move. A modern take on the Great British café, rooted in nostalgia, proper brews and Blackpool Rolls. Simple menu. Low labour. High character. Not the obvious answer, which is why it worked.

The hotel public areas needed to be more than a place to pass through. Coffee, retail, books, vinyl, work pods, communal seating and an outdoor garden turned the space into something useful, flexible and social.

The restaurant could not behave like a hotel dining room. It had to pull from the pavement. Accessible food, cocktails, music and energy, built to compete on the high street.

Good ideas were not enough. The numbers had to work in February too. The five-year feasibility reflected the reality of the town, with seasonality, dayparts, labour, expenses and trading rhythm all built into the thinking.

The project now has a clear F&B strategy, concept direction and five-year commercial feasibility to support the next stage of the Hotel Indigo Blackpool scheme.

What started as a hotel feasibility project became a stronger place-making opportunity.

The strategy gives the old Post Office a clearer public role. Rooted in the history of the building. Shaped around the future of the town.

The project is still awaiting final approval, but the direction is clear.

This is not a hotel that happens to have food and beverage.

It is a building designed to become part of the town again.

Built for locals. Embraced by tourists. Loved by guests.

A landmark building, brought back into the rhythm of Blackpool.