Proposing an original restaurant/café concept

The assignment aims to equip students with the skills to become creative and innovative entrepreneurs with imaginative ability, by using creative idea generation techniques. (GQ 2, 3, 6).

Overview

This is an individual assignment.  For this assignment you need to present one (1) original concept for a restaurant/café. It is very important to note that while you can be influenced by other people’s ideas, the concept that you develop has to be original and new – meaning no one in the world has had the exact same idea that you are proposing. So, ensure that you research the concept, to make sure that the idea you are proposing is original.  It is acceptable to commence with an existing idea, but you then need to start to modify it until it looks very different from the existing idea that you based it upon.  Before presenting your final original idea, please Google it to make certain the idea does not already exist.

It is important to describe how you came up with your idea (the process) as well as the final idea (the end product/concept).  Your assignment has two (2) main components to it:

(1.) Description of your creative/original/innovative concept

(2.) Illustration of the process through which you arrived at your concept – Mind Map

Format

1. The oral presentation should be 5 minutes maximum.
2. Written paper – word document 900 words (note the mind map does not count towards the word count)

The creative aspect of your restaurant/café concept could relate to one or more of the following areas.  Note while you are not expected to address all of the following incorporating a few of the following may make your concept more creative:

• New service experience – e.g. can you come up with a new idea for cooking and serving; can you think of ways in which food is not cooked and served by the restaurant staff?
• Design, interior, and ambience – e.g. restaurant is not confined to an enclosure of 4 walls
• Restaurant/café in an unusual location – e.g. hospitality provided on a Ferris wheel
• New themes restaurant – e.g. hospital themed restaurant
• Unusual target market – e.g. hospitality for pets or babies
• Automation – do you have ideas about how any aspect of the service can be automated
• Type of food – unusual type of food

What to include

Your assignment presentation has two (2) main components to it:

• Description – the following needs to be considered
• What does the concept involve?
• What format will it take?
• Why will it be fun and interesting?
• What is creative and original about this concept?
• Who is it targeted at?
• Where will it take place?
• What will the activities be?
• What are the challenging aspects of this concept?

• Illustration of the process through which you arrived at your concept – Mind Map

Research

Also, please remember whist this is expected to be your original idea, you still need to carry out a lot of research about your concept before you propose your new concept – hence a bibliography is required.

Guidance for this assignment

A Facebook site that provides one-on-one personal consultation and feedback about your proposed concept – see unearthing ideas: https://www.facebook.com/unearthingideas.

It is recommended that you use the Unearthing ideas Facebook site to work with peers, in order to exchange ideas and get feedback (please note that this is a site open to the public; if you do not want others to see your idea, do not post it on this site).

See example provided in the learonline assignment folder – but please note it is just for guidance and does not fit into the word count requirements of your assignment (you only need to write 900 words).  This example is intended to give you some ideas on how to approach the assignment.

Recorded workshop on creative idea generation