The Gastronauts

A second beginning

Though a few dinner deliveries and Zoom get-togethers kept the club going for a few months, like many institutions in the restaurant industry, COVID shut down the Gastronauts. But now we're back. 

Of course, the brand had to undergo a transformation, as no brand lasts 15+ years without changes. With the proliferation of Instagram accounts dedicated to posting the latest hard-to-find dishes deep in the heart of NYC, the focus of Gastronauts needed to shift or risk losing relevance. The strategy needed to be updated.

We determined that while a more crowded field existed in terms of finding and informing people about dishes—one of the key aspects of the Gastronauts—very few people actually WENT to those restaurants. The main factors were distance and time, anxiety about what to eat, and a lack of people to go with. All of which are functions that the Gastronauts club naturally fullfills. 

We instituted a subtle branding shift towards Gastronauts being the occasion to explore NYC's amazing and adventurous food. Eating with other like-minded folks is the reason you leave work to head out to Queens.