CBRE Delivers an Award-Winning HQ for Earls Kitchen + Bar

Earls Kitchen + Bar’s new Vancouver head office, or “Clubhouse,” is more than just a feast for the eyes. The team behind the HQ’s innovative, hospitality-focused workplace took home CoreNet Global's Workplace Excellence, Small REmmy Award last fall. The recognition represented the culmination of a successful collaboration between CBRE Canada’s Workplace Strategy and Project Management services.

The new Earls HQ features an on-site kitchen-bar, which doubles as a collaborative work environment and event space and connects office staff to the restaurant experience. Earls’ commitment to the wellbeing of their employees is reflected in their choice of ergonomic furniture, enhanced access to daylight, dog-friendly finishes and a fully equipped roof-deck that serves as an alternative work environment

Every aspect of the office was designed to be flexible, with furniture able to be moved or repurposed in a restaurant. Earls also reused art, prints and old signage from former locations to embrace its heritage while diverting landfill waste. New lighting infrastructure allows staff to test restaurant lighting specifications in-house.

“This space is great for Earls employees across North America,” says CBRE’s Vancouver-based Vice Chairman Kevin Nelson, who worked with Earls on the deal. “This head office is a perfect demonstration of how the wide-ranging CBRE platform can add value for our clients. We see Earls as a client for life and did everything we could to create exceptional outcomes for them.

“The CoreNet award is a result of that hard work and determination.”

Change is Hard, but Possible

In 2021 Earls’ head of real estate called on Nelson for help finding a new office. The space Earls was in lacked a variety of work environments, making it difficult for employees to collaborate or have private conversations.

“They were still in their lease but it was time for a change,” Nelson says. “They wanted to own their head office and give employees a best-in-class work experience.”

He assisted Earls in purchasing the top floor of OFISWERKS by FORMWERKS, a strata office development in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood. The building was still under construction, so the transaction contributed to a large portion of the presale. This brought credibility to the OFISWERKS project at a challenging time for the office market and enabled Earls to secure more favourable terms on the purchase.

Hospitality First

Earls’ leadership wanted to create a hospitality-focused HQ that reflected the company’s devotion to its restaurants. They also wanted the office to enhance connection to its brand, foster their strong culture and improve the functional workspace.

Earls tapped CBRE’s Workplace Strategy and Project Management teams to tackle the project.

“After extensive engagement with Earls employees and leadership, it was clear they were open to a bold vision of what the future of their office could be,” says Sarah Stanford, CBRE’s Director of Workplace Strategy for Western Canada. “Having worked exceptionally well with remote and hybrid workstyles, they craved a space to purposefully bring them together and meaningfully connect head-office staff with the restaurant experience.”

There are no private offices in the new Earls HQ, and all workstations are located on the perimeter of the office, maximizing daylight and providing everyone with outdoor views. Meeting rooms have glass fronts to allow natural light to shine in, helping break down barriers and facilitate collaboration between staff while enabling them to choose workspaces that suit their needs.

The space can accommodate peak demands with sufficient workstations and well-distributed alternative work points including booths, focus rooms, high-top tables and lounge spaces. A key feature of the strategy is the introduction of branded ‘nodes’ that provide opportunities to work and collaborate in hospitality-inspired environments.

“We designed the space to be more functional while integrating key elements of the Earl brand,” says Stanford. “While more useful, the new office footprint is somewhat smaller, so we optimized for desk-sharing and increased collaboration and amenity spaces, all while allowing for future growth and adding vibrancy to the workplace.”

Early Design Influence

Once the Workplace Strategy team developed the concept plans, CBRE’s Project Management team took over, with Chloé Coussy at the helm, overseen by CBRE’s Jean-Philippe Picard.

Coussy collaborated with Earls’ in-house design team and brought in expertise from the office design firm MAK Interiors and the contractor Vestacon.

“Since the building was under construction, we had the opportunity to collaborate with the developer to incorporate tenant improvement elements into the base building,” says Coussy. “For instance, we coordinated the placement of heat pumps, sprinkler heads, cores and sleeves (cylindrical tubes embedded within a wall, floor or ceiling that allows pipes, wires, or other utilities to pass through) before they poured the slab.”

Incorporating these elements into a completed building can be costly, creating significant budget and scheduling challenges, explains Coussy. Integrating them during the base building construction phase reduces the need for costly and wasteful demolition and relocation.

The team also collaborated with the developer to build gender-neutral washrooms that matched the plumbing fixtures and accessories of the base building washrooms. This enabled them to take advantage of the base building bulk pricing for materials purchased for the entire building.

As is the case with most construction jobs, there were some challenges in relocating certain components and reconfiguring the plumbing. But the team leveraged their expertise to deliver the project on schedule and under budget.

“The results were outstanding,” says Coussy, noting that employees now enjoy coming into the new Earls HQ and office attendance is high. “The REmmy award we received for this project is a testament to Earls’ vision, which the CBRE team was committed to bring to life.”