the smaller details of NOLA Gastropub

Hola!!

The red beans are on the stove along with the gumbo for tonights service and I have a twenty minute break before I have to get back in the kitchen so I thought I’d throw a post up real quick, as I’m really excited about our latest addition to the local, and you know me and excitement, I need to let it out….!

Readers, meet G.

Isn’t she just lovely?!!

I can’t stop staring at her. Or smiling!!

G makes me happy.

G is a gangsta and she’s right across from the kitchen so I can always keep my eye on her!

So how did G come to be….?

Here’s the story more or less-

When it comes to the design of the local, we knew we wanted ‘industrial, rustic, simple, campo (farm), personality’.

How does one achieve that?!

For us we started with the bigger things- paint colors, lighting, furniture.

After these tasks were finished we sat back and looked at what we had to work with.

Our space is small and we don’t want to crowd it. We want it to have a cozy feeling but not too cozy. We want turnover. We want sales! We also want our clients to feel like they never want to leave. Hmmm.

What things need to be displayed? For us- menu, days & hours, website, ‘cash only’, Happy Hour details, logo, etc. Where do those things go?

How do we want to represent ourselves? What are we about? New Orleans music? Good local craft beer? New Orleans spice? Southern Hospitality? Day drinking? Natural? Homegrown? Local?

Who do we want our clients to be? 20′s? 30′s? Families? Viejos (Elders)? Neighborhood people? Professionals? Artists? Richies? Interesting & strange people? YES.

Also! Social media and marketing…

People, LOVE taking photos of what they’re eating, where they’re at, what they’re doing and the more visual pieces we have, the more likely they’re going to photograph them and blog about it or share it on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, todo!

And then the chicken just popped into my mind!

I ran it by Ticol and he agreed instantly. SCORE.

So, how do we do that? Do we have someone paint it by hand? Get a massive stencil made and then we spray paint it? Have a giant sticker made?

Then the tattoo shop came to mind!

Well Done Tattoos is about half a block from us on Gorriti. The place is clean and always packed.

One of Ticol’s ex-animation students, Carlos, actually works there and did a couple pieces on Ticol and Joaco for their 30th’s. You should ask Joaco where his bff tattoo is. Just sayin’.

So we tracked Carlos down, told him about the project and showed him a sketch of the photo of the chicken encouraging him to give it his own twist. Total creative freedom but we’d like to see a sketch before the brush hits the wall.

On his next day off we met up, showed him the local and his tools and he got to work.

I threw on some De La Soul and went in the kitchen and made some biscuits & eggs. When I came back I noticed Carlos knew every word to the songs of Stakes is High. Who is this guy?! Part tattoo artist, part hip hop DJ, that’s who.

He finished G after a couple of hours and we talked to him about a few other ideas we had for the local to see if he was interested.

He is!

We’re so thankful. He does good work and seems like a really humble guy. He’ll be back tomorrow to work on the front. You can follow him on Instagram or stop by if you’re in the area!

SHITS GETTIN’ REAL.

(Did you notice the scale in the top pic? I’M IN LOVE WITH HER TOO.)

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LizaPuglia

the smaller details of NOLA Gastropub