2232 Bush Street is a curious building. It is a classic South of Market warehouse - 2 stories, concrete, steel industrial sash - that somehow got built in Pacific Heights. So it's perfect for Charles Phan, our client again (for the fifth time) for OTD Bush. Charles likes being from the Mission, so while it's great for him to have a restaurant in Pacific Heights, he's not going to want a remodeled Victorian. Now he has the perfect loft - he lives upstairs (which we also designed) and on the ground level his new restaurant reminds a lot of people of the original Slanted Door (some of whom have never forgiven us for designing his Ferry Building location).
The palette here is simpler than Slanted Door as is the food, but it still nods to the mother ship. Here we use black slate floors and white marble counters (at SD it's the reverse). One wall is paneled in pine (at SD the tables are all cypress slabs), and the hostess stand is made from a piece of the same boulder that is the desk at SD. In the back hallway and restrooms we used backwards slate tiles (we expose the grooved side, meant to improve adhesion to the mortar bed) whose pale greenish tones recall the paint color scheme at SD.
But there are unique touches as well such as a marble bar at the cook line that recalls the bars of the famous SF grills like Vanessi's. And the custom wine dispensing system we designed for the bulk wine program - an exciting new venture that enables wineries to put their wine in stainless soda kegs - eliminating the cost and waste of glass bottles. And then my favorite, the chandelier over the communal table, which is one half of a ship's buoy, complete with adhered oyster shells.
Client: Charles Phan
Project Lead: David Battenfield
Contractor: Terra Nova
