626 Washington Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63101
SERVICES
Architecture
Interior Design
Construction Management
Custom Fabrication
Are you looking for a new place to grab a quick and healthy lunch? How about a glass of wine and some house-made hummus with a side of freshly-baked pita on your way home from work? The brothers Roth have you covered at Tazé Mediterranean Street Food. After traveling around the world for research (read: eating) the team worked hard to bring the exotic flavors of the Middle East to hungry diners in St. Louis.
Part of the design challenge was teaching St. Louisans a new word — Tazé is Turkish for “fresh” — while giving the space a look distinct from other fast-casual restaurants. Co-owners Justin and Casey want to open additional locations throughout St. Louis, so materials and visual elements needed to be easily replicated in future restaurants, too.
Working closely with Justin and Casey, our designers created a modern restaurant imbued with the spicy warmth of the food. You enter the space in an airy dining room that features benches crafted of whitewashed oak. The walls are white, serving as a screen for projection TVs, and a blank canvas for rotating art to keep the visuals fresh. Burnt red draperies hang in the corners to frame the walls and to give a nod to the exotic food coming out of the tandoor oven. Past the dining room, the wood from the benches wrap around the ceiling, wall and floor to create a cozy cocoon for the kitchen and another dining area. Here, a community table appears to rise out of the floor. This is the best spot in the house to see the deliciousness coming out of the pita and tandoor ovens.
A bright red feature wall is in the back of the restaurant, as is a private dining area that contains a table our team designed and built. Before they got into the restaurant business, Justin and Casey were whizzes at sourcing a variety of goods overseas (they have the enviable passport stamps to prove it), so they were able to put their own stamps on their space by finding cinnamon-colored teak tables, and the glittery lights in the corners of the dining room.
We were thrilled with the result. And so was the Riverfront Times, which complimented the design and the owners of Tazé who “hired the geniuses at SPACE Architecture + Design to do their magic on the interior”.