Pastoral’s newest addition is open; Appellation is a taste sensation, housed in a tasty space!
The new Pastoral market and restaurant, Appellation, opened in the Fall so you may already have enjoyed eating there. If you haven’t, check out the final photos today and read about the design and construction elsewhere on the moss blog.
But don’t take our word for it …check it out, yourself. Your taste buds with thank you!
Our relationship with Pastoral goes back a few years and two restaurants now. We worked with their team to design the space for Bar Pastoral, in Lakeview, in 2012 and we’re still proud to show off those photos (and to eat there)! And now we can show you the photos of the new space (credit: moss) below.
So there you have it, bar and banquette seating, plus the new market side with cheerful tile-backed cheese retail counter and plentiful wine display and storage areas. Its all just waiting for you to stop by – for a meal or just for some great ingredients.
But, where did it all begin?
Starting from Scratch
When the Pastoral team came to us to discuss a new restaurant AND artisanal market in Andersonville, we were excited to dig back in.
The space had previously housed a small grocery – Urban Orchard. We began with an open space, with plenty of natural light at the front and nice high ceilings and beautiful brick walls, which we discovered only after peeling off formerly applied finish materials. We had a little bit of demolition to undertake – to expose the structural columns and underside of the stair to the unit above, but generally, we were wide open.
Dual Design Process
This project had in interesting twist – in one space it needed to combine both the restaurant, Appellation, and the classic Pastoral wine and cheese market. How should we keep those two spaces clearly divided without breaking the union between the two spaces?
We achieved the dual mission by using part of the retail display shelving as a partial “wall” between the two areas. A freestanding wine rack delineates the back part of the space and a standing bar near the entrance gives day shoppers a place to snack and directs evening diners into the restaurant area. A large central bar forms an intermediate area between the sit down dining and the market area.
For a detailed look at how we designed the free-standing wine racks, check out Tuesday’s post, MOSS IN DETAIL: A RETAIL ORIENTED WINE RACK.
As usual, we began design with inspiration. We pulled strongly from the aesthetic of the other Pastoral locations as well as from traditional markets generally. Read more in the design post published in September.
Constructing Appellation and the Pastoral Market
Stripping all the extra material from the walls – plaster, drywall, and even some corrugated metal cladding – revealed a few interesting things. There was a lot of lovely Chicago Common brick and also a few patches of original plaster. This area by the door held a small row of small strange wallpaper decals that we decided to preserve.
Once we got through demolition – mostly just stripping extra finishes from the walls and floor – we were able to begin constructing the interior spaces. Custom built in elements like retail display shelves and wine racks were prepared off site while mechanical duct work and internal walls were assembled on site.
We left the bulk of the ceiling exposed, painted a bright white, and likewise revealed the structural I-beam supporting the floor above and the mechanical duct work. Seeing the behind-the-scenes workings of a building only makes it more interesting. Plus, it let us maintain a higher ceiling height than if we’d tried to disguise those elements.
The Material Palate of Pastoral
Hitting the right tone for the material palate was very important for us and for Pastoral. Just as they focus on providing real food products – carefully sourced wine and cheese and artisanal bread – they love working with authentic materials. We used a number of different types of wood in the space. The bar top is antique oak with a heavy sealing coat of epoxy for easy cleaning and the bar front is reclaimed, rough sawn oak. Reclaimed alder makes up the shelves over the bar. The pressed tin ceiling over the retail area is a new material, but reclaimed pressed tin (curtesy of Carlson’s Barnwood) was used as a bar front surface for the cheese and sandwich counter at the back of the restaurant space.
Sliding Barn Door Room Divider
One more area of wood texture for the Appellation restaurant space is the barn door divider at the front dining area.
The sliding doors allow the front part of the restaurant to be visually divided from the rest for private events. While having that division be possible was important, it was even more key to be able to let natural light flow through the space the rest of the time.
Our solution: a row of dropped beams spanning across the narrower space – the sketch at right shows an early iteration of this idea. Below is a construction elevation drawing.
The final “beam” actually conceals a set of metal rails to support these sliding barn doors. Slide them all to one side and they barely constrict the light flow to the space beyond. Slide them mostly closed and they nicely separate off a private dining or event area.
Custom Lighting
The lights shown below are another great creation ofTed Harris Lamps. Ted specializes in making beautiful and arresting lights from found objects. This light fixture is made from a collection of old milk pails.
