Hospitality Interior Design

Restaurants, bars, breweries, cafes, and hotels, designed for the way a room actually runs.

Let's work together!

Front of House, Back of House, & Everything The Guest Never Sees

We design the rooms that decide whether a guest comes back. For restaurants, bars, breweries, cafes, and hotels across San Diego and Southern California. That means the concept, the plan, the light, and the materials all get resolved against the same question: how does this space perform on a full busy Saturday, and how does it hold up in year five.

Our hospitality work starts with the service path. Where the food leaves the kitchen, where a host stands, how a bar absorbs a rush, and what a guest sees from the seat they were given. Finishes get specified for real wear, and the pieces that carry the concept get drawn to fit, and are built by our in-house fabrication team.

Read our blog about a recent Hospitality Project →
Custom dark wood dining table and olive green velvet banquette at Base Pair Cafe in Torrey Pines, San Diego Coffered timber ceiling and pendant lighting over the dining room at By The Sea in Coronado Covered patio with communal tables and a marble bar under an olive tree at Kettner Exchange, Little Italy Wood counter seating under an exposed beam ceiling at Blue Water in Ocean Beach, San Diego Custom oak wine storage millwork at Lucien in La Jolla Row of window-side tables with a view of the ocean and palm trees at Lucien in La Jolla Open kitchen and chef's pass framed in warm metal cladding at Lucien in La Jolla Stone-faced bar and custom dark resin counter top, with taps and bottle shelving at Fox Point Farms in Encinitas String lit dining room with hanging greenery at Craft House inside of Sky Deck in Del Mar Glazed atrium roof over curved banquettes and a flagstone floor at By The Sea in Coronado Custom bronze astrolabe used as the door entrance to the speakeasy Anigma in Encinitas Dark wooden back bar and stools in the speakeasy at Anigma in Encinitas Velvet drapery and framed art over a curved banquette in the lounge at Anigma, Encinitas >

Our Hospitality Design Services

Detail of a scalloped black stone edge over white oak, above a checkered marble floor Aerial site diagram for Flip Farms showing the farm parcels, adacent housing, and the Flip Market commercial zone Designer reviewing a materials and finish board during schematic design at Tecture Studio Lounge seating, open shelving, and checkered flooring in the interior at Base Pair Cafe Fluted travertine bar front and backlit arched liquor niches at By The Sea in Coronado Close view of a curved white oak table edge and upholstered chair custom built for Base Pair Cafe Woven rattan pendant shade inspected during furniture sourcing and quality control Custom steel door with branded signage for North Park Beer Co in Bankers Hill, San Diego Rolled construction drawings open on site during construction administration at By The Sea, Coronado
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Before anything gets drawn, we need to understand the business. Programming starts with the concept, the menu, the service model, the price point, hours, budget, and schedule. From there we study the space, verify field conditions, review the shell and any landlord requirements, and map the adjacencies and constraints that every decision after this one has to live inside.

A hospitality concept is a promise the room has to keep. We develop distinct design directions, establish the space plan, and define the palette, materiality, lighting character, and spatial narrative that carry the idea. 3D renderings let the operatir stand inside the concept while it is still affordable to change it, and the direction is presented, refined, and approved before it goes any further.

A room has to feel full at forty percent and calm at capacity. We design the zones that make that possible: booths, communal tables, banquettes, bar fronts and back bars, private dining, lounges, and patios, along with the transitions between them. Sightlines, acoustics, and lighting levels are resolved with the plan, not after it, so the room reads correctly at lunch and at eleven at night.

The parts a guest never sees decide how the parts they do see, feel. We coordinate with kitchen consultants, equipment vendors, and the operator on service flow, expo and pass locations, bar wells and speed rails, POS and service stations, dish and prep paths, storage, and staff areas. The goal is a plan a crew can run at full volume without a workaround becoming permanent.

In a restaurant, the built-ins take the most abuse and get the most attention. We design bar fronts and back bars, host stands, banquettes, booths, shelving, partitions, lighting, and feature walls for the specific room they live in. With our in-house fabrication team, an ambitious piece can be tested, priced, built, and installed without quietly becoming something else along the way.

Furniture that photographs well and fails in six months is not a saving. Our FF&E procurement covers sourcing, specification, budgeting, purchasing, tracking, quality control, storage, delivery, and installation. In hospitality that means specifying to commercial-grade wear and cleanability, and running lead times backwards from the opening date so nothing critical shows up the week after the soft open.

Signage is the part of a brand a guest can put a hand on. We design identity applications, exterior and blade signage, menu boards, murals, wall graphics, restroom identification, and the small tactile pieces that carry a concept all the way to the table. Drawn alongside the interior rather than applied to it later, the brand ends up native to the room.

An opening date does not move because a detail was left open. We produce construction documents precise enough to bid, permit, and build from: drawings, scheudles, and specifications with nothing left for the field to invent. Through construction administration, we coordinate with contractors, review submittals and RFIs, respond to field conditions, and stay involved through to the punch. On San Diego and Southern California projects, that means walking the site in person.
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Hospitality Projects Across San Diego

Stone bar bottle shelving with uplighting at Lucien, a small reservation only restaurant in La Jolla, San Diego

Lucien

La Jolla, San Diego
A thirty seat, reservation only dining room where raw material and refined detail sit side by side.

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Long communal booths beneath the skylight and exposed redwood framing at Nolita Hall, Little Italy

Nolita Hall

Little Italy, San Diego
A former warehouse turned community beer hall, built around exposed redwood framing and a sixty-foot skylight.

Stone faced bar, custom black resin bar top and gabled structure hung with greenery at Fox Point Farms in Encinitas

Fox Point Farms

Encinitas, California
Market, restaurant, brewery, and event spaces for a working farm and mixed-use neighborhood.

FAQ

  • Our scope can include programming, concept and schematic design, design development, construction documents, construction administration, FF&E procurement, environmental branding, wayfinding, and custom feature design. We scope to the concept, the space, the team, and the opening date rather than selling the same package to every operator.

  • Restaurants, bars, breweries, beer halls, cafes, tasting rooms, event venues, and the food and beverage spaces inside mixed-use developments. The work ranges from a thirty seat dining room to a multi-building site, and the common thread is a space that has to perform commercially and still feel like somewhere a person chose to be.

  • Most of our hospitality work is exactly that! An existing shell arrives with its own conditions, from ceiling heights and duct routing to whatever the last tenant left behind, and those conditions usually end up shaping the strongest ideas in the project rather than limiting them. We verify what is actually there before we design to it.

  • We do both! Anything that carries the concept, has to fit a specific dimension, or does not exist at the quality we want gets designed here and built by our in-house fabrication team. Budget dependent, everything gets specified, because custom for its own sake is just a longer lead time and a bigger number.

  • We are based in San Diego and work throughout Southern California. From Little Italy and North Park to La Jolla, Del Mar, and Encinitas. We are not limited to our location, and love to travel for projects as well. Being close enough to a site is efficient, but we will always plan accordingly when working on a project away from home.

Round oak table set for two beside the stone bar and rattan stools at By The Sea in Coronado

Tell us about the space, the concept, and when you want to open!

Let's work together!