How Moments of Connection are Helping to Redefine the Restaurant Industry

By Catherine Dorrough

How can infusing community make events more memorable and help them deliver a higher ROI? To answer this question, let’s head to the Pacific Northwest, where restaurant startup Mt. Joy is making a splash with its community-infused ethos.

Mt. Joy aims to revolutionize the restaurant industry with transparent, regenerative, and humane practices. The Seattle-based restaurant group serves simple, craveable, affordable food, grown and delivered to consumers in a way that is healing to the environment, humane to animals, and compassionate to all the workers who bring the supply chain to life.

But Mt. Joy is more than a restaurant; it’s also a burgeoning community, built around its message of advocacy. To spread their message, the Mt. Joy team have built a successful engagement strategy from the ground up, both in-person and online, through a thriving grassroots network.

They’ve done so with help from the New York-based creative team at Studio Analogous. “Alongside Mt. Joy’s talented team of chefs, restaurateurs, farmers, engineers, regenerative agriculture specialists, and food industry changemakers, we found ways to express the values of joy, sustainability, and transparency in every part of the brand experience,” said Analogous Founder and Creative Director Fanny Krivoy.

Strengthening Community Bonds

To plan next-level events that leverage the power of community, Krivoy said the best place to start is with “a clear articulation of purpose and values. From the conception of the event to the list of attendees, program, and activities, by identifying moments of connection, community bonds are strengthened, and everyone has a deep experience that stays with them beyond the event.”

But events, as important as they are, constitute just one part of a larger brand ecosystem. To bring Mt. Joy’s ambitious brand vision to life, Studio Analogous took a deeper dive into the restaurant group’s creative strategy, including:

• Designing an immersive guest experience that meets people where they are
• Developing a brand position and brand promise to activate Mt. Joy’s mission
• Crafting a sticky tagline to tie everything together, because “Good tastes better” 

By looking at Mt. Joy’s mission holistically, Studio Analogous set the stage for a successful brand experience, from strategy to execution.

Krivoy said this collaboration aligns perfectly with the values of Studio Analogous, where her team focuses on using design to bring impact to day-to-day life, through brand creation, experience design, and changes to how people work together. As an educator, Krivoy teaches Design Thinking for Social Innovation at NYU’s Graduate Wagner School, and she has been teaching design and methodology for several years at Pratt Institute.

Krivoy is also the creator of Project Inclusion, a podcast exploring leadership and the multiple dimensions of inclusion in action.

Their work with Mt. Joy marks the third time that Studio Analogous has worked with serial entrepreneur Robbie Cape. “We are excited to see the Mt. Joy village expand, bridge ecosystems, and show the industry that good food that’s good for the planet is also good business,” said Krivoy.