In the spring of 2018, The St. Joe Company engaged The Idea Boutique to help rebrand Fish Out of Water, a former fine-dining restaurant at the WaterColor Inn in WaterColor, Florida. The restaurant closed in late 2017 for a full-scale remodel and expansion. Our mandate was to help rebrand Fish Out of Water as a fun, family friendly dining destination for lunch, happy hour, and dinner. The coastal-casual vibe of the new decor included a large deck and bar expansion, making it one of the few dining locations along Scenic Highway 30-A with incredible views of the Gulf of Mexico.

The first step was to create a new logo that would become the restaurant’s brand identity, which The Idea Boutique proposed renaming with the acronym FOOW, pronounced “foo.” This modernized update to the existing brand allowed us to have a lot of fun with the project! After thoughtful design explorations and great feedback from the client, we finalized a playful yet timeless logo with two fish as the O’s in FOOW, along with the restaurant’s full name below, keeping the equity of the existing brand. It was then time to work on designing coasters, napkins, and apparel with fun sayings that incorporate FOOW and fun quotes about dining and celebrating life, as the brand’s personality encourages its patrons to do. The deck area was christened FOOWbar, while the private dining area is called the FOOWroom. Once its incredible culinary team set the restaurant menu, The Idea Boutique designed new menus with another modern, playful fish theme. Lunch, Dinner, Cocktail, and Kids menus were created and are maintained by The Idea Boutique when updates are needed.

The restaurant opened with a tremendously positive response in late June of 2018, with the final touches in place, including setup of the gift shop and signage for the front and back entrances, also designed and ordered by The Idea Boutique. We also designed custom labels for FOOW spices and other food products to be sold in the gift shop. In the first few months after opening, FOOW quadrupled its number of patrons for dinner from the same period in 2017 and is expected to continue to see great success. We are so thrilled to have been part of this FOOW-tastic project!