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Dinner theaters: Rockwell Group and B.R. Guest bring the art of stagecraft to the creation of a barbecue joint and a Mexican eatery
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By Matthew Hall
During its two-plus decades of existence, B.R. Guest has developed a reputation for opening brassy, pump-up-the-volume restaurants. While the cuisines of restaurants run by Stephen Hanson's company vary widely-Mediterranean at Isabella's, Chinese at Ruby Foo's and Italian at Vento Trattoria, for example -- all offer eats in settings inundated with country-appropriate props, sets and décor. This "all the world's a stage" philosophy is shared by Rockwell Group, the architecture/design firm renowned for creating visually seductive restaurants, hotels, casinos, retail spaces and theaters. On top of that, firm founder David Rockwell has created stage sets for Broadway productions of "Hairspray" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," among others.
Given that common denominator, it's no surprise that the two New York-based companies have been teaming up. First came the three-level Ruby Foo's Uptown, whose visual centerpiece is a sweeping theatrical staircase that the restaurant company says "would make Norma Desmond proud." And now, B.R. Guest (whose expansion plans got a major boost last year when it entered a 50-50 partnership with Barry Sternlicht's Starwood Capital Group) has brought Rockwell to the table to whip up two more restaurants: the Wildwood BBQ on Park Avenue South in New York, and Dos Caminos in the glitzy new Palazzo Resort Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
City Meets Country
B.R. Guest's barbecue joint, which is designed to cash in on the latest culinary craze wafting through the Big Apple, is housed in a space formerly occupied by the company's Barca 18. That restaurant's tapas-centered menu garnered mostly tepid reviews, and its main dining room was dissed as "an industrial cow barn" by a New York magazine restaurant reviewer.
The city and the country collide again in Wildwood BBQ-albeit in a more sophisticated, subtle fashion that Rockwell designers believe will prove more palatable to diners (and reviewers). "Although barbecue has its roots in the rural south, it has also developed an urban connection over the years," says Rockwell principal Gregory Stanford. "And to make this restaurant appeal to New Yorkers, we knew we'd have to add an urban edge to the traditional barbeque joint."
To achieve that balance, Stanford says the design team began by referencing painted roadside barns, as well as urban factories and garages, to help develop the narrative story for the 4,700-square-foot space. That process, in turn, resulted in an environment featuring exposed concrete flooring, unfinished plywood walls, a reclaimed wood-timber ceiling, and steel-framed garage doors topped with nicotine-stained glass panes behind a 50-foot-long bar.
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