In our last post Your Restaurant-the Importance of Design we focused on the value of hiring a qualified architect for your new restaurant. This time, we will delve into the space itself, and what you should look for when evaluating potential sites. Your space can make or break you, and I encourage you to use the resources and experience of your architect to help you find the perfect one for your business.
When we meet with potential restaurant clients, particularly those just starting out, there are a lot of initial questions as to the need for an architect. The conversation generally goes a bit like this:
I have always dreamed of owning my own restaurant and I know that’s something you specialize in. Is there any advice you can give me?
Compelled by our participation in the South Park Architects’ Open House (a walking tour of some residential designers’ offices in our neighborhood), we were up and running in our new space at the start of October. The Open House was held in conjunction with The Residential Architect ReInvention Symposium & San Francisco House Tour, and allowed us to meet and chat with many other residential architects from around the country who were visiting the symposium. It was a great evening, where we were able to share a multitude of different ideas about residential design and architecture…not to mention being a great excuse to share some drinks and food, something we never seem to shy away from! And thanks to our neighbors at JAX Vineyards, who helped out with the wine, the festivities went well into the evening. Luckily we had a roof deck to handle the crowds and take advantage pf a perfect SF “summer” night.
We are currently in the middle of building out our new space, into the penthouse at our current address, a la The Jeffersons, we are “movin on up, movin on up….to a deluxe apartment in the sky!” The space is a classic atelier space that offers us the opportunity to place zero ten design’s mark on our own work environment, with the same responsibility to budgets and time constraints that our clients always require us to respect. The side benefit is that it has been a fun way to test drive and fine tune our “zero to ten “process and to see how creatively (read: inexpensively) we can achieve our design goals.