Bar Nico

A long-time friend and client called to ask if we would like to design a restaurant that was to reflect a Mexican menu, highlight music played from vinyl and muse a family heirloom...a wolf. He didn’t need to ask twice. The 2000 square foot space was divided into four major areas. The “porch”, the “party” , the “alley” and the “machine”. The porch was conceived as a post-covid era gathering space where the store front was operable and movable to create an outdoor space with direct connection to the bar without being part of the “party”. The wolf greets everyone entering from porch. He commands the locus above the party. The alley was the space left after the requirements of the machine. This left-over space was long and narrow. It seemed to have very little to do with the menu, the music or the wolf. The design team embraced the space as an alley: simply adding the rhythm of light and the energy of color. Two visual moves made the space attuned to the menu. The music and the wolf are reinforced with the space of the machine...the walls serve as the speakers for the vinyl born vibrations and the walls morph into the ledge which is commanded by the wolf. There were few parameters. There are limited moves. The syntax is autobiographical.