Warm dining room with amber pendant lights and leather banquettes at golden hour
Close-up of custom brass door pull against dark walnut millwork
Wide shot of full dining room at golden hour with soft candlelight
Hand-glazed terracotta tile detail on restaurant wall with rake lighting
Open kitchen pass window with chefs plating during service
Curved banquette upholstered in cognac leather against exposed brick wall
Material swatch board with linen, oak veneer, and brushed brass samples
Wide shot of full dining room at golden hour with soft candlelight
Restaurant Architecture

Every restaurant
is a stage.
We build the set.

From the pass window height to the acoustic ceiling, we design the full environment — the parts guests notice and the parts they just feel.

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On the Kitchen

The kitchen isn't backstage — it's the engine room.

Every ticket that fires, every plate that moves, every second of lag between the line and the pass is a design problem we solved before the first shovel hit the ground. We spec the hood clearances, the cold-side flow, the expo station sightlines — then we make it beautiful.

"We've built kitchens that run 280 covers a night without a single traffic jam."

Commercial kitchen with stainless steel pass window and chef expediting during dinner service
Chef at pass window reviewing tickets with kitchen brigade in background
On Acoustics

Acoustics are the ingredient no one tastes but everyone feels.

A room that's too loud kills the conversation. Too dead and the energy drains before the appetizers land. We work the ceiling geometry, the upholstery spec, the hard-surface balance — tuning the room the way a sommelier temperatures a bottle.

"We target 68–72 dB at the average table. Lively enough to feel full. Quiet enough to close a deal."

Restaurant ceiling detail with acoustic panels integrated into geometric timber baffle system
Full dining room at capacity during evening service with warm ambient lighting
On Circulation

The server path is a choreography. We write the score.

A server who walks 30% less covers 30% more tables with 30% fewer errors. We trace every run — from POS to kitchen window to table to bar — and build the floor plan around that choreography. The result is a room that runs itself.

"One client cut per-cover labor cost by $1.40 in the first quarter. The room paid for itself."

Restaurant floor plan blueprint spread on zinc bar top with coffee cup and red pencil
Server navigating dining room during busy Friday service with plates held high
Selected Work

Rooms that
earn their keep.

Loma restaurant interior with warm amber lighting and curved plaster walls
Full Build-Out

Loma

San Francisco, CA · New Build · 110 seats

Loma
Verre dining room with floor-to-ceiling wine display and marble bar
Renovation

Verre

Chicago, IL

Verre
Carbone dining room with red banquettes and vintage Italian poster art
New Build

Carbone & Co.

New York, NY

Carbone & Co.
Brasa open kitchen with live fire grill and chef counter seating twelve
Full Build-Out

Brasa

Austin, TX · New Build · 140 seats

Brasa

47

Restaurants Built

12

Markets Entered

280

Max Covers Designed

94%

Client Return Rate

Our Process

We design
from the kitchen
outward.

Architectural drawings spread on drafting table with red pencil annotations and coffee cup
"The pass window height isn't a detail. It's the moment the kitchen and the dining room decide to trust each other."

— Marcus Reyes, Principal

01

Pre-Lease Analysis

Before you sign, we walk the space. We check the slab, the gas line location, the egress path, the HVAC plenum. We've killed deals that would have cost clients $200K in change orders.

02

Schematic Design

Kitchen first, always. We work the line, the cold prep, the dish pit, the walk-in locations — then we build the dining room around the operation. The floor plan follows the food.

03

Construction Documents

Every hood clearance, every outlet location, every finish spec. Our drawings don't leave questions for the GC to answer at 7am on a Tuesday with a subcontractor standing there.

04

Construction Administration

We're on site. Not weekly — as needed, which is often. We catch the substitutions before they're installed, the rough-ins before the drywall goes up, the millwork before it ships.

Free Resource

The Restaurant
Design Checklist.

48 items covering hood ventilation clearances, front-of-house flow planning, acoustic targets, ADA path-of-travel, and the six things every restaurateur forgets to spec before the GC bids.

Kitchen: ventilation, clearances, walk-in locations
FOH: server path, POS placement, table density
Acoustics: dB targets, ceiling strategy, hard/soft balance
Code: ADA, egress, occupancy load calculations
Procurement: lead times that kill opening dates

"We printed it and taped it to the site trailer wall. The GC thought we wrote it ourselves."

DK

David Kim

Owner, Hearth Restaurant Group · Seattle

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