Peter Ringland: What comes to mind when you think of ‘Botanic Avenue’?

At one time in Northern Ireland’s recent history, Botanic Avenue was the epicenter of evening activity in Belfast.

Every middle aged person in Belfast seems to have an anecdote from a drunken night out at The Regency Hotel, The Pink Flamingo or The Empire Music Hall from the 80s and 90s. It seemed Botanic Avenue served as a welcome relief for both sides of the community to ‘escape’ to, during the troubles.

Over the last two decades, the nightlife epicenter has obviously moved from the south of the city into the city centre – and rightly so! Our city centre is only now catching up with the rest of the cities in the UK in terms of hospitality density and it’s great to see the difference that nightlife can make in pushing a city forward! Belfast city centre finally has a nightlife offering worth travelling to!

But what of Botanic Avenue now that nightlife is no longer its core identity? I have spent the last few months with some of Botanic’s core businesses thinking about Botanic Avenue’s identity crisis. It didn’t take long for us to discover that Botanic now has by far the most diverse food offering in the city with nearly 40 outlets and over 20 different cuisines on just one street. In addition to the expected Irish, American & Italian outlets, it has every niche you can think of covered including Lebanese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese and even Hawaiian.

When you take the time to notice, Botanic has become really quite extraordinary. It has accidentally transformed into the most diverse and densely populated ‘food outlet street’ in Belfast, but unfortunately its identity hasn’t kept pace. Back to my original question about what comes to mind when you think of Botanic – people think all sorts of things; some are nostalgic of what Botanic ‘used to be’, some think of it as the place to go when its sunny and some unfortunately can’t get past the memory of the recent racist attacks. This confusion is about to change.

Botanic’s new identity has been hiding in plain sight and the core businesses of Botanic have decided to invest in a ‘rebrand’ to finally give it the repositioning it deserves. Over the next 6 months, the brilliance of Botanic will finally be ‘shouted from the rooftops’. Street maps, signage, social media content creation and advertising campaigns have all been planned and funded by the core food businesses of Botanic with help from Queens University and the local MLAs.

Make way for Belfast’s very own Food Quarter.