Creative Collaboration: Custom Furniture and More for Restaurants and Nightspots

Gazelle Railing by Eric David Laxman at CustomMade.com

If you’re entering the restaurant business, you most likely have a very good idea of the cuisine you wish to offer and a pretty good idea of the ambience you want to establish.  However, unless you’re a polymath, you’re probably not a woodworker, custom furniture maker, or stained glass artisan, but the furniture and décor choices you make will have a profound impact on your customers’ experiences.  At CustomMade, you can find the artisans who will work with you to bring your unique design vision to life with “Wow” pieces, custom furniture displays and more for your restaurant that will have your patrons telling their friends, “You’ve got to see the ____ they have at this place.”  Have a look at some works by CustomMade artisans that grace fine restaurants, lounges, and bars across the country.

Songwriter Nick Ashford of the singing and songwriting duo Ashford and Simpson recently passed away, but he will be forever remembered for the hits he and his wife, Valerie Simpson, penned for greats such as Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, and Diana Ross, as well as the songs he co-wrote and performed with his wife.  The Sugar Bar restaurant and lounge in the Upper West Side of Manhattan was another of Mr. Ashford’s collaborative endeavors with his wife and other artists, like CustomMade’s own Eric David Laxman.  This dramatic steel gazelle railing, inspired by an African ceremonial mask, as well as other fixtures by Eric, were custom designed for that restaurant.  Listen to Mr. Ashford, a master of artistic collaboration, describe working with Eric in the video, “Magic in Metal and Stone,” on Eric David Laxman’s website:

Being an artist myself, it’s hard to find someone who can zoom into your mind and figure out exactly what you’re looking for.  I wanted something that really looked authentic.  You know you can make something all shiny and brassy looking, but when he brought the designs to me and the samples to me, they looked like they had been in the ground for a hundred years, and that’s exactly what I wanted! … One of the great things about Eric is (his) understanding the space we’re working in. … And the collaboration was actually easy because he listens.

Share your plans for your restaurant or other space with Eric David Laxman, “an award winning artist, inspired collaborator, and sensitive listener.”

Stained glass windows for a nightclub?  Artisan Susanna Conaway of Because Designs created six stained glass windows for Deity, a nightclub in Brooklyn.  Her works help set the atmosphere in this ethereal and sexy space housed in an artfully renovated former synagogue.  The piece shown here is the centerpiece of a triptych that features Nut, the Egyptian goddess of the night.  Check out the gallery page and the Deity image slide show for more views of these beautiful and mysterious pieces.  If you would like stained glass with a contemporary, “industrial chic” edge for your nightspot, contact Because Designs.

Stained Glass Window for a Brooklyn Nightclub by Because Designs at CustomMade.com

Furniture maker Tarik Yousef of Tarik Yousef Fine Furniture was commissioned to create the seating, mirrors, and this host cabinet for Third and Hollywood, a high-end restaurant in Grandview Heights, OH.  Check out the restaurant website for more images of Tarik’s work.  About the cabinet, he writes:

Upon entering the restaurant, the first item customers see is a contemporary designed cabinet with an artistic flare. The double book matched walnut burl makes a spectacular pattern that immediately draws one’s eyes into the piece. From there you notice the shimmer and reflection off the highly figured curly cherry cabinet and handles. The handles were designed as an integral part of the design, downplaying the typical after thought that hardware often is.

Contact Tarik Yousef Fine Furniture for a “one-on-one design consultation” for your new restaurant.

Third and Hollywood Host Cabinet by Tarik Yousef Fine Furniture at CustomMade.com

This wine tower for the Cue Restaurant and Bar at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, MN, “is an intriguing blend of contradictions in design.” Indeed.  Artisan Ira A. Keer of Art of Furniture writes:

It offers old-world libations in an über-cool modern aesthetic. Visually it is sumptuous and elegant, yet its geometry is rigid and made from cold hard stainless steel. While serving as a dividing wall between the Cue bar and dining room, it blocks no views. Over-sized in scale, it intimates and defines the Cue bar area under the vast volume of the twenty-five-foot-high restaurant ceilings. Exposed in full view, this feature is at once inventory storage and a spectacular architectural and decorative element separating the bar from the dining experience. Rising thirteen feet high and spanning over twenty-four feet in length, the Cue wine tower houses 770 wine bottles in the upper racks and over 330 bottles in refrigerated cases below the stone top counter. All bottles are accessible from the back of the tower via a rolling library-type ladder. In retrieving the selection, the ascending and descending wine steward creates a dash of ceremony before the wine is delivered and served!

If you’re looking for a integral piece for your restaurant that will be both functional and a “Wow” part of your customers’ dining experience, contact Art of Furniture.

Wine Tower for the Cue Restaurant and Bar at the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, MN, by Art of Furniture at CustomMade.com

Rest assured, the unique custom works in these images will have some readers mentally adding to their “to do” lists for the next time they are in New York, Ohio, or Minnesota.  Perhaps they’re making calls and plans for dinner or drinks at these locations now. The right custom furniture and décor for your commercial establishment will have your patrons spreading the word about your business and looking forward to their next visit.  Find a CustomMade artisan in your area and give your restaurant the custom furniture treatment.