SPACE is the Place: The "Green" Restaurant Trend Continues in St. Louis

Repurposed, recycled, up-cycled, salvaged and chic – we continue our series on this popular green design trend in restaurants today. We visited SPACE Architecture + Design, a full-service firm that integrates inventive architectural and interior design, custom fabrication and quality construction. Their menu of restaurant projects includes some of the toniest and trendiest places in town – Mission Taco Joints, Pastaria, Niche, Franco, and Bobo Noodle House to name a few.

Give Tom Niemeier and crew an old building ready for a new life and stand back. The action starts fast and cooks non-stop, a boon for the busy restaurateurs whose ambitious plans keep the firm hopping. In the process they’re preserving one building at a time to maintain the architectural fabric of a city.

“We established early on that adaptive reuse is a core value at Space. We do ground-up [buildings], but it’s not our core. Ninety-eight-percent of the time, we repurpose existing structures,” owner and architect Tom Niemeier says.

When a restaurant moves into an established neighborhood, older buildings are often the only option. Opening a restaurant, café or bar in a former factory or office building takes imagination and skill.

“At SPACE, we start by listening to the client. We’re not coming to the table with a certain mind-set. When a restaurateur talks concept, I’m building a picture in my head about what I’m hearing. I see scenes, which turns into a conversation about the space, materials, tables, bars – it’s an ongoing collaborative effort.”

 “When we met with Adam [Tilford] for the first Mission Taco Joint, he communicated his vision – he wanted a casual California Mission District feeling,” Niemeier says.

SPACE interpreted the design to reflect the urban street noise, the kiosks and shacks, murals and the funky style of the Mission. Repurposed materials, especially old wood and tin, fit the design very well. “We took apart an old garage in south St. Louis that was headed to a landfill. We encapsulated the wood with the patina of age and the layers of paints used it for tables and walls.”

Salvaged wood, recycled steel and murals play a large part in the new Mission Taco Joint in Soulard (now open) but the space isn’t a cookie-cutter replica of the Delmar store.

A curtain wall that separates the bar from the restaurant pulses with a staccato rhythm. “As you walk past, the uneven open spacing and widths of the wooden planks creates narrow views followed by wider glimpses of each side,” lead project planner Juan Devia says.

The stacked box back bar design borrows directly form the functional, interesting bar at the Mission Delmar site. The seaside mural by local artist Craig Downs adds pops of color and a dash of whimsy to end wall of the long space.

Blackened metal long-arm fixtures that suggest streetlights hanging into the space were created at the SPACE in-house fabrication studio. The shop also made the wooden tabletops enlivened with slats of colored woods.

“Having a shop in-house strengthens the design process. We’ll build a sample tabletop an owner can see and touch. An owner can see other woods or variations on a color palette. We’ll show different levels of finishes for a rougher or a smoother hand-feel to a table. We’re testing in front of the client,” Niemeier says.

Shop head honcho Parker Brock and Brian Zimmerman fabricated the Mission tops from the stock of salvaged woods at the shop. No two are exactly alike. The day we visited, Zimmerman was making a dining room table for a private client out of bowling alley flooring. During the school year, Zimmerman heads the sculpture department at Webster University. This is his first summer working at SPACE.

“I’d never used reclaimed lumber before. It rips up saw blades. We use a metal detector to find nails, but it’s rough. Parker cut into a board once with little holes full of carpenter bees. It’s always interesting,” Zimmerman says. He’s impressed by weathered woods he’s worked with this summer.

“Old wood is like a zombie in that it never dies. Re-purposed lumber is generally high-quality wood that’s aged, stable and predictable. You can sand it, add a little moisture and torque it, finish it and it’s nearly new again,” Zimmerman says.

Being green doesn’t come cheap, however. “Repurposing materials isn’t necessarily about saving money. Sometimes it’s more costly. You save on materials, but you add costs in labor and equipment,” Niemeier says. For would-be restaurant owners who have skills in construction and fabrication, Niemeier offers a caution. “Don’t discount your time unless you’ve got backers or a trust fund.”

Finding the right fit, the balance between restaurateur and design/build firms, seems daunting, but SPACE believes good communications can bridge the unknowns.

Niemeier allows for serendipity throughout. “I still do sketches, which leaves the imagination free. We can create drawings that almost look real, but when you people see something photo realistic, it seems final and interrupts the design flow. Sketches keep ideas fluid.

“Even with 3-d models, we leave it open. Architecture is a blend of art and science. We explore the correlations between the two,” Niemeier says.

The architects are keenly aware of correlations in the spaces they help create. For a sign at Salt and Smoke, the shop burned the restaurant’s logo into a slickly finished plank. Each project has a singularity within unified design parameters.

“Owners contribute things that are intensely personal and meaningful. At Amigos Cantina we used Mexican coins and stars from the owners inset into the bar top; things that make that bar unique in the world,” Niemeier says.

Adam Tilford found the mission-style bell that will hang in the space in Illinois. “I like that I can be hands-on with the project. My favorite part of working with SPACE is working with Tom. This is the third restaurant we’ve done together. It’s playful. We have fun with it. It’s not just business.”

For Tilford, the vertically integrated architecture, design/build and fabrication service SPACE provides gives him peace of mind. “What’s nice is they stand by their work, whether it’s design or fabrication. There’s no blaming the contractor, or the finishers. If something’s not right, they fix it. It takes the pressure off the job.”

Business at SPACE this summer includes the new Wheelhouse downtown location and for Kakao and the new White Box Eatery, both slated to open soon in Clayton. Look for Harold’s Doughnuts  Columbia, Missouri as well. More buildings saved and less stuff in the landfills. SPACE makes green look good.