Concept, Naming, Brand Development, Identity Design, Interior & Experiential Design for @centrogarden 's second location — Centro Noca.

Located in Burlington’s Downtown, the popular and successful Centro Garden needed to expand into a second location that was less than 500 meters up the high street and just north of Caroline Street — the major road that intersects the downtown’s north and south halves.

Insite strategized that the new location should carry the Centro name but utilize an identifier to indicate the difference between stores. Insite is a 30+ year downtown Burlington business and we’re life long downtown residents as well — consequently we’d often joke with downtowny friends that our little downtown Burlington was divided by Caroline Street into NOCA and SOCA — North of Caroline and South of Caroline. Being that Centro would eventually be located in both halves, we pitched the acronyms as the identifier for the store and it stuck.

Further to help differentiate locations, we conceived that the original store would focus on the core passive pursuits of decor and plants that Centro Garden was known for, while the new Centro NOCA could focus on the domestic activities of cooking, entertaining, bartending, cleaning, organizing and celebrating — the verbs or ‘ings”.

From the start of conceptual discussions and planning for the second store, we believed that a food related experiential component was essential to ensure the shop remained entertaining, dynamic and top of mind to the surrounding community. The owner’s love for Italy and his family connection to Italian culture made it natural for this food element to be espresso, gelato and related food stuffs.

Hence Centro Noca Gelato + Café was born. And since the NOCA component would inevitably draw it’s own audience and culture, we gave it a colourful identity that would allow it to venture offsite in the event it expanded or produced food products for customers to take home.