Ulster Sports Club
Pints. Something we as a studio can get behind. When they’re served in a working man’s sports bar that’s served Belfast since 1927, they’re a little sweeter. Ulster Sports Club closed in 2018, and in 2019 relaunched under the tutelage of NI hospitality giant Beannchor. The beauty of the reopening was deciding against changing too much. Our job, 2 years after the bar opened, was to create a website that made the city’s most eclectic pub come to life online.
2022
Hospitality
Belfast, UK
Ulster Sports Club
The new local, now online
This was a project completely committed to culture – creating a website that gives the same feeling as a fresh pint sat down on a sticky bartop.
Concept
The concept was simple – take the already massively successful Ulster Sports Club brand and bring it to life on a new Shopify site that allowed event management, operations and new merch releases to be easy.
Process
Ultimately, the process came down to user experience merging between real-life and online. How could we create a website to translate the feeling of the endearing tinsel-adorned stage, the appropriately sticky carpets, the eclectic mix of punters who feel like they belong in this one pub above others?
It had to be a straight-talking, easy-to-use and offer a no-frills experience. What you see is what you get. What we had to get right was the tone – it would be easy to make a Shopify site that sold merch, listed events and had pictures on it. Anyone who’s stepped foot in the Sports Club knows it had to be more than that.
We spent time with the internal team, spent time researching other great pub websites and ultimately, hovered over more than a few Guinnesses to find out how we could get that feeling transferred online.
Our build was driven by a simple navigation tactic – find out what someone might want and make it impossible to miss. We think the site does that, and more, but we’ll be the first to admit we’re a long way off digitally replicating the feeling of a fresh pint in the front bar on a Friday.
Someday, maybe we’ll get there. Until then, ours is a Guinness.
“The main thing that jumped out from working with Hundred Studio is their ability to understand your brand and what it needs most. They don’t just come in and do what you ask – they want to take it further, build your brand, and create something that drives business.”