Mr Biggs & Debonairs

Building on a forecourt that never shuts

The site was a working petrol station in Lekki. It could not close, and fuel customers could not be inconvenienced, so the restaurant above and beside them had to be built in the gaps — nights, quiet hours, and whatever windows the forecourt gave us.

That dictated the whole programme. Work was sequenced so that anything noisy, dusty or obstructive happened after hours, and anything that could be prefabricated off site was. The build was planned around the station's trading day rather than the other way round.

Two brands, one room

Mr Biggs and Debonairs are separate identities with separate standards, and both had to be legible in a single space without the room becoming a collision of logos.

We used the architecture to separate them — different seating types, different materials, a double-height volume that lets each brand own a zone — while keeping one consistent floor, ceiling and lighting language across the whole restaurant. The yellow does the signalling; the building stays calm underneath it.

Working to international standards

Franchise fit-outs come with specification manuals, approval chains and non-negotiable equipment requirements. Coordinating those with local trades, local supply and a live site was the real work on this project, and the reason it finished on programme.