Between the Summers of 2015 and 2018, I dreamed of, opened, and closed a diner in Baltimore.

I went into the project driven by a desire to create something larger than myself. I wanted to learn what it was like to lead a project, and I think I was also trying to create a space for myself to belong.

I am someone who lives with a deep sense of hospitality and enjoys bringing about beauty and a sense of care. My Mom’s Parents owned a restaurant, and although I never met them, I feel their influence.

I wanted to know why it was so hard to get a good meal in Baltimore and took a bit of an extreme approach to finding out.

Going into this project, the one thing I knew was that I didn’t know what or how much I didn’t know.

I moved through the world always thinking about the project and keeping an eye out for anything that might be useful. I began to study any restaurant, commercial, or situation of hospitality that I came across.

Observing a Single-Molecule Restaurant

While in the planning stage, I worked at a restaurant called Bottega where there was 1 hot chef, 1 cold cook, 1 dish, and 1 to 2 servers. 11 tables total. I loved the chance to observe a single unit of restaurant.

Experiencing My First Restaurant Opening

I also helped with the opening of Clavel, a mezcal bar and taqueria, which gave me the chance to experience and take part in a restaurant opening before I launched my own.

When thinking about how to design and outfit the interior, I wanted to create a space that was both comforting and eclectic.

I was working with a limited budget and needed to design things in a way that could absorb a variety of disparate objects and aesthetics without becoming too chaotic.

I wanted to create a space that felt like the intersection of Hopper’s Nighthawks painting, a country store, and a field of wildflowers.

I bit off way more than I could chew. This was definitly a fundamental error and lesson of this project.

I didn’t go in with a team. Over the course of the project, a team developed, but I now more fully appreciate the importance of starting with a more solid foundation.

I didn’t do enough to control and communicate the brand. Most fundamentally, I had spent too much time in my own head and didn’t do enough to incubate the brand out in the world.

I also worked with a local sign painter, Simon the Sign Man, who made some work that I loved, but I didn’t do enough to unify the identity across media.

I didn’t have enough organizational systems in place from the beginning. I ended up introducing systems, but the experience definitely highlighted the power and importance of structure, protocols, and standards.

I think for a while I felt a lot of guilt and shame about my youthful hubris.

I now see the absurdity of taking on such an unwieldy project in such a state of inexperience, but I am also glad that I jumped into the rapids and learned lessons the hard way. Pain is a powerful teacher and helps lessons to stick.

Coming out of this experience, I definitely take branding, marketing, and accounting much more seriously.

This experience also led me to discover User Experience Design and now Service Design.

I am an entreprenure at heart, and I consider this some early scar tissue to help give me future fortitute.