There seems to be some good energy on Well Street recently, with a number of the empty units now under offer, after a lot of closures in recent years.
Does anyone know what’s coming into the old Well Street Pizza, Grand Howl, or other empty units?
I’ve always thought the Barry’s London studio names are a bit inconsistent.
Some studios have great, location-specific names such as Soho, Canary Wharf and St Paul’s. Then there are Central, West, East and SW1, which are simply compass directions.
If I were renaming them, I’d suggest:
* Central to Bloomsbury
* West to Queensway or Bayswater
* East to Shoreditch
* SW1 to Belgravia
* Soho, Canary Wharf and St Paul’s stay as they are
The difference is that Soho, Canary Wharf and St Paul’s immediately tell you where the studio is. By comparison, Central, West, East and SW1 could refer to huge parts of London.
It also feels out of step with how Barry’s names its studios in other cities, where locations are usually named after the neighbourhood they’re actually in. Neighbourhood names are more distinctive, easier for newcomers to navigate and give each studio its own identity.
Those would be my picks, but I’m interested to hear what everyone else thinks. If you could rename the London studios, what would you call them?