Visual Merchandising and Store Design | VMSD.com

Second Act: Creating unit No. 2 of the LA Food Show restaurant chain required a bravura performance by its designers and builders.

By Tom Zeit

After more than two decades of success with their California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) restaurants, founders and co-ceos Rick Rosenfield and Larry Flax wanted to launch a new restaurant chain that was a little more upscale and a lot hipper. Five years ago they opened the first LA Food Show in Manhattan Beach, Calif., and diners applauded the restaurant’s interesting menu at online review sites. But when the founders set about creating a second one – in Beverly Hills, no less – they wanted to kick things up a notch.

“The older one didn’t have the energy and movement they wanted; it was static and uniform,” says Walter Pancewicz, principal and vp with Aria Group Architects, which designed the second restaurant.

The Beverly Hills locale chosen for the second LA Food Show -- an early 20th century industrial building with beautiful bowstring trusses, wood beams and brick walls -- put its own stamp on the designers’ plans. “The unique character of this building made us want to preserve a certain amount of it,” says Rosenfield.

As a result, the project team cleaned up many of these elements and left them exposed. Some new materials (such as wood and terrazzo) were brought in specifically to complement the older ones.

Because the restaurant wasn’t branded as a CPK, the designers had free rein, aside from using a richer version of that chain’s signature red color, throughout much of the new design. The 5800-square-foot space is long and narrow, “and the positioning of the kitchen was very important,” says Pancewicz. “If it had been installed in the back it would have made the front of the house look too small.” The solution was to run the kitchen along a side wall with the bar on the other. That improved the depth of vision from the front, making the space appear larger than it is.

Initially, the owners didn’t want a mezzanine, but one was necessary in order to get to their targeted seating count of around 200. The design team turned that mandate from constraint to inspiration and used the staircase as a major focal point. Keeping the upscale goal in mind, they went for the exotic. The risers are backlit, the treads are terrazzo and Bolivian rosewood flooring strips were used on the curved walls.