WAGAMAMA

Three openings. Two firsts.

Shot on opening day.

Our first set of Wagamama images won over the operator and the brand owner in one go.
TRGC booked us for its next two openings before we’d delivered the final edit. Those two sites were Wagamama’s first ever UK motorway restaurants.

TRGC has run airport hospitality for 35 years and operates wagamama across UK travel hubs. Between August and October 2026 it opened three new sites. First came Birmingham Airport’s departure lounge. Then wagamama’s motorway debut at Extra’s Beaconsfield Services on the M40, followed by Cobham Services on the M25, widely reckoned to be the UK’s busiest service area. We were the photography studio on all three.

A new site opening has a short news window. Press, landlords, airport partners and the brand all want images while the story is live. The first frames have to land on opening day.
The rooms set the bar high. These were compact travel units of around 2,500 sq ft. One sat in a live airport terminal behind security. Two sat inside motorway food courts, including the busiest service area in the country. Terminals and food courts light a room badly and fill it with noise. Each unit still had to read as a proper wagamama, and pass two sets of eyes: TRGC as operator, Wagamama’s franchise team as brand owner.
We shot every site twice. Once as a finished room, before the doors opened. Again in full service.
The empty room gave us the architecture: clean wides, the benches, the kitchen, the light. Service gave us the life: teams at work, bowls on the pass, guests sitting down.
Speed was written into the brief. Hero shots of each venue went to TRGC on the day, ready for press and social while the news was still news. The full edit followed. It was colour-balanced and delivered three ways: full resolution, compressed for web, and press selects. Where the storefront screens showed the wrong message, we retouched them so every hero frame was ready to publish.
- Opening photography at wagamama Birmingham Airport, across two days
- Opening photography at wagamama Beaconsfield Services, M40
- Opening photography at wagamama Cobham Services, M25
- Same-day venue hero shots for each opening
- Full edited sets: full resolution, web and press selects
- Retouched storefront images with updated digital signage
Birmingham landed with both clients. TRGC said the images smashed the brief, and Wagamama’s franchise team signed them off happily. Beaconsfield and Cobham followed on the same brief. Then TRGC brought us in for Jones the Grocer at Waterloo.
Three openings on record, including Wagamama’s first two motorway restaurants. A press-ready image library TRGC can put in front of landlords and airport partners as it grows the brand under its new owner, Areas. And a client that now books its new site openings straight to us.