Delivering secure, high-capacity connectivity across vaults, bar areas and outdoor spaces
Gordon’s Wine Bar is one of London’s most prestigious and atmospheric venues, known for its unique underground vaults, busy service areas and popular outdoor seating. With a high volume of customers, staff, payment devices, CCTV, EPOS systems and guest WiFi users all relying on stable connectivity, the venue needed a network that could perform reliably in a demanding hospitality environment.
Elmdale IT was brought in to design, install and support a modern wired and wireless network capable of handling the needs of a fast-moving bar environment, while maintaining strong security, resilience and performance.
The Challenge
Hospitality networks are under constant pressure. At Gordon’s Wine Bar, this was made even more complex by the physical layout of the venue.
The network needed to support:
- Orders and payments taken from iPads over WiFi
- Reliable connectivity from the underground vaults through to the outdoor areas
- EPOS systems and card payment devices
- CCTV traffic
- Staff WiFi
- Secure guest WiFi
- 400–500 guest connections during busy periods
- Multiple internet connections with failover resilience
- Secure VLAN separation across business-critical systems
- Web filtering and firewall protection
Providing strong WiFi in underground vaults can be particularly difficult due to thick walls, signal absorption and challenging building materials. A standard WiFi installation would not have been enough.
Elmdale IT’s Approach
Elmdale IT carried out a professional network and WiFi assessment to understand the building layout, coverage requirements, expected user volumes and the different systems relying on the network.
Rather than simply installing more access points, Elmdale designed a secure, segmented and resilient infrastructure using best-of-breed Cambium Networks equipment.
The solution was built around:
- Cambium firewalls for security, filtering and internet resilience
- Cambium network switching for fast, reliable wired connectivity
- Cambium indoor and outdoor WiFi access points for strong coverage and high throughput
- Multiple secure VLANs to separate business systems
- Multi-WAN internet failover to keep the venue online
- Guest WiFi management to support large numbers of customer connections
- Careful WiFi placement to deliver performance in the vaults and external areas
Secure VLAN Network Design
To keep the network secure and reliable, Elmdale IT separated key services across multiple VLANs. This helps protect business-critical systems and ensures guest traffic does not interfere with EPOS, CCTV or staff devices.
The network was designed to support separate areas for:
- EPOS and payment systems
- Staff WiFi
- Guest WiFi
- CCTV
- Network management
- General business systems
This approach improves security, performance and manageability, while giving Gordon’s Wine Bar a network that can grow with the business.
Reliable WiFi from the Vaults to the Outdoor Areas
One of the most important requirements was allowing staff to take orders and payments from iPads anywhere in the venue.
This meant WiFi had to work reliably:
- Deep inside the underground vaults
- Across busy internal bar areas
- Through transition spaces
- Out into external customer seating areas
Elmdale IT’s WiFi survey-led approach ensured the access points were positioned correctly and configured to deliver consistent roaming, strong coverage and reliable throughput.
This has allowed staff to move freely around the venue, taking orders and payments quickly and confidently without being restricted by poor signal or unreliable connectivity.
Resilient Internet Connectivity
For a busy hospitality venue, internet downtime can quickly affect payments, ordering, customer service and the overall guest experience.
Elmdale IT implemented multi-failover internet connectivity, supported by Cambium firewall technology, helping Gordon’s Wine Bar remain online even if one connection fails.
This resilience gives the business greater protection against outages and helps ensure EPOS, card payments and cloud services remain available during busy trading periods.
Security and Filtering with Cambium Firewalls
The Cambium firewalls provide Gordon’s Wine Bar with a secure and manageable edge network.
Key benefits include:
- Secure firewall protection
- Web filtering
- Multi-WAN failover
- Segmentation between VLANs
- Protection for business-critical systems
- Centralised management and monitoring
This gives Gordon’s Wine Bar the security expected of a modern hospitality business, while keeping day-to-day network management simple and reliable.
The Result
Elmdale IT delivered a modern, secure and high-performance network that supports the way Gordon’s Wine Bar operates.
The new infrastructure now allows:
- Staff to take orders and payments over WiFi using iPads
- Reliable WiFi access from underground vaults to outdoor areas
- Guest WiFi for 400–500 customer connections
- Secure separation of EPOS, CCTV, staff and guest networks
- Business continuity through multi-failover internet
- Strong network security and filtering
- Improved customer experience
- Faster, more flexible service for staff
The result is a robust hospitality network designed for performance, resilience and security.
Client Quote
“Elmdale IT have completely transformed the way our network and WiFi operate at Gordon’s Wine Bar. Our team can now take orders and payments from iPads across the venue, from the vaults through to the outside areas, with confidence. The WiFi performance has made a real difference to the way we serve customers, especially during busy periods.
The team at Elmdale understood the challenges of our building and designed a solution that works brilliantly for both our staff and guests. Their knowledge of hospitality networks, security and connectivity has been excellent.”
Amanda Whiteside
Manager, Gordon’s Wine Bar
Why Elmdale IT
Elmdale IT understands that hospitality venues need more than basic WiFi. They need networks that are fast, secure, resilient and designed around the way the business actually operates.
For Gordon’s Wine Bar, Elmdale IT delivered a complete Cambium-powered network solution that supports EPOS, payments, CCTV, staff systems and high-capacity guest WiFi — all while keeping the business protected and online.
From WiFi surveys and network design through to installation, security and ongoing support, Elmdale IT provides the expertise needed to keep busy venues connected.