Based: Covent Garden, London
Launched: 2010
Number of staff: 150
Key clients:
- Academy of Medical Science
- Institute of Physics
- Royal Academy of Engineering
- Royal Society
- RSA
- Cutty Sark
- St Paul’s Cathedral
What are your ambitions/goals for the business?
To successfully relaunch the Harbour & Jones website, increasing the company's online profile, driving website traffic and online enquiries. To launch an events internship in 2014, aiming to bring through and develop the events talent of the future.
Continue to grow our portfolio of venues as well as running the sales process in more venues. Ensuring that all our clients are aware of our venue portfolio. For Harbour & Jones to become even more trusted and known as a brand that stands for excellence.
We want our brand to be known for its high-level of food, service, styling that is consistent across all our sites and events.
What is your best piece of work or stand-out moment?
One of the most stand-out of all our moments has been celebrating the reopening of one of London's most iconic landmarks, Cutty Sark. After undergoing a £40m restoration, Cutty Sark chose Harbour & Jones for its inaugural dinner relaunch on 23 May 2012.
An incredibly high-profile event, the ships reopening received coverage in all national papers both in print, online and on TV. The inaugural dinner was also attended by the likes of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, as well as Cutty Sark trustees.
Since the event we are now one of Cutty Sark’s approved caterers, we also run the Even Keel Café on board the ship.
What makes you a Fab 50 Newcomer?
Having grown exponentially in the past three years, Harbour & Jones is going from strength to strength. Starting out as the exclusive event caterer at Royal Society, we have since become caterers at a fantastic portfolio of sought after London venues, as well as running the entire sales and event planning process at a number of them.
Taking on a central core team only eight months ago, our chefs and operations team are now supported by a dedicated event sales and marketing team. Still a small company, we have a fantastically close team with a wealth of experience and passion, heading up the team since last September.
Behind the scenes, we have also been working on our brand new website, which is set to go live at a launch event in the next few months. Giving Harbour & Jones a new look and feel, the website will first and foremost highlight our food expertise, as well as showcasing our venues and building our online profile even further with a new blog and Facebook page.
We believe in using good quality British produce, not only do we make sure that where possible we use local suppliers but we also go one step further by making it core to all our actions throughout the year.
Looking ahead to 2014, we're already planning our yearly extravaganza, which will take part at an exclusive venue in November this year. Changing the format of the evening, we will be using it as a platform to launch our new menus and concepts for 2014, expect bold and brilliant, including a dramatic way forward for Harbour & Jones.
Comment below to let us know what you think.
The full Fab 50 Newcomers list can be found in the June 2013 issue of Event. To subscribe to the magazine,