Onigilly
San Francisco
Interior Design, Cafe Design
Scope
The design of Onigilly’s first brick and mortar restaurant followed two years of food cart operations by two young entrepreneurs. Their new space in downtown San Francisco is small and serves both as a kitchen for their continued cart and catering businesses and a dine in lunch spot and Izakaya style evening destination With little capital, the design was created as a cleaned-up canvas that will evolve as business grows and is crafted to embrace in the space the same values expressed in the food: simple, clean, locally sourced, and with a modern sensibility. Immediately upon the opening the lines out the door prove the validity of the concept and the owners’ desire to become a national brand seem more plausible all the time.
My Role
This project was partly pro-bono for one of the many clients of La Cocina, the incubator kitchen in San Francisco’s Mission District. The small two story space located in the Kearny Street corridor was a depressing chaotic mess of equipment, mis-matched finishes and odd storage spaces. I worked with the Onigilly owners to learn their operation and understand the aesthetic they were after. Then I created a layout and design that maximized the space for their use. I provided drawings, specifications and detail drawings describing the final design as well as information allowing them to stage the work. I recommended and coordinated work with signage and fabrication contractors for all initial construction and provided oversight to complete phase one of the project.