Bien, ¿y tú?

This project was an adventure from start to finish due to an extremely particular client. I learned a lot about communication on this job, as at the beginning my team and the client were not understanding each other. When the client gave us the green light to start designing, he also sent us a Pinterest board for inspiration. Using images that the client had collected we created a color pallet and modeled our first design. Unfortunately at our next meeting, we found out that our design was completely off base and he only liked very specific elements in each of the pictures. After that rough start, we slowly worked our way to the design you see here but there were many changes along the way even through construction. I modeled 29 versions of this restaurant space in SketchUp as it became necessary to “save as” every time there was a major change in case I needed to pull something from a previous version. I selected all of the finishes for the space in concert with the client, looking at hundreds of different tiles until we found the right ones and I customized the colors for the floor tile around the bar. I drew all of the construction documents with review and edits by the principal architect. This project started in January 2021 and was a long journey, made even longer by the arduous historic preservation board’s review of the patio and some HVAC complications in the adjoining restaurant. We are hoping the restaurant will open by the end of 2024.

Bien, ¿y tú? had a particularly tricky layout and to get enough seats in the space we pushed the back bar into the adjoining restaurant, also owned by our client. This required us to complete a full remodel of the restrooms the back bar was to take space from. The necessary change became an exciting opportunity as the finishes were quite dated and the layout was a tight fit with too many fixtures. With the revised layout the stalls felt spacious even though the overall area was reduced. The finishes were inspired by the old American design themes in the restaurant and I once again spent many hours finding just the right tiles. The floor tile was a custom pattern I laid out based on some inspiration photos from the client and the wallcovering was a custom print I coordinated with the vendor and a local artist.

Construction Images: