Blackfriars

Believed to be the UK‘s oldest purpose-built dining room, Blackfriars in the heart of Newcastle upon Tyne, a 13th-century former medieval friary. In 2001 it was opened as a popular restaurant and has now expanded to include their tasting room, cookery school, banquet hall and meeting room.

Blackfriars was looking for a more user-friendly website that promoted all business areas. The website was built in 2012, when the owners only occupied the restaurant and it was built on now outdated software. Over the years, they have taken over new areas of the complex and now host more than 500 events per year but their website lagged behind in terms of functionality.

The Support

Blackfriars were signposted for support to Digital Pathfinders through the North East BIC. Over a series of workshops, the team helped Blackfriars to thinking about and outline the customer journey, considering the new site had to be started from scratch. The support from Digital Pathfinders enabled Blackfriars to better understand costs for the new site and understand the key areas that they needed to focus on.

Through the Digital Pathfinders programme, Blackfriars was also awarded the Digital Tech Resilience Grant from Newcastle Council. This provided some of the budget for the new website that you can see today.

Sam Hook, Marketing Director of Blackfriars said this about the support provided by Digital Pathfinders:

"We heard about Digital Pathfinders through North East BIPC and found the process very quick and easy. Working with the team and getting the Digital Tech Resilience Grant motivated us to get the new website up and running.”