Project Overview

Inspired by Chicago’s Prohibition-era Beer Riots, The Puccini Group fashioned the Fairmont Chicago’s newest neighborhood gastropub Columbus Tap to celebrate the city’s rich history and contemporary culture with a vibrant dining room and delicious fare. Locals and visitors to Chicago are invited to relax on sofette lounge-style leather seating or a large communal table to enjoy the ritual of an afternoon beer in a warm and inviting spot. Creating a seamless design and brand identity for the space, Puccini Group wove the taphouse concept through all touchpoints from the floor-to-ceiling keg wall display to the tabletop items and uniforms. The resulting, vibrant and sophisticated taphouse offers a space that celebrates the American history, past and present with the practice of a Sunday afternoon beer.

Project Commissioner

Fairmont Chicago, Millennium Park

Project Creator

Puccini Group

Project Brief

Puccini Group’s primary goal with Fairmont Chicago’s new central bar Columbus Tap was to fuse historic references from Prohibition-era Chicago with a fresh and modern setting, providing revelers with local context in a familiar environment. The refined, local pub features large windows, allowing for an open, airy atmosphere with a modern framework, inspired by mid-19th-century architectural elements. Distressed brick walls and modern, saloon-style brass chandeliers custom-designed for the space provide a sophisticated ambience with which to perfectly pair the upscale menu offerings of sharable snacks and main plates. The large central bar of cerused oak is complimented by custom ceramic floor tiling, while a branded wall graphic inspired by vintage, hand-painted advertisements completes the setting.

Project Innovation/Need

Columbus Tap pushes forward the idea of restaurant design with a centralized bar. Instead of creating separate bar and dining spaces, Puccini Group’s designers conceived a more dynamic atmosphere, transforming the energy of the restaurant to be consistent with the tap room concept and experience. The bright, open bar is complimented by raised, soft-seating, inviting guests to comfortably enjoy a beer with other travellers and have a bite to eat. The casual and spacious setting, integrating spirits with snacks, reimagines what customers would expect from a hotel restaurant. To create a fun sense of continuity throughout that space, Puccini Group’s designers from both branding and design backgrounds collaborated with Vincent Sacco to create a custom branded keg wall, accented by murals throughout the restaurant.

Design Challenge

The primary challenge for Puccini Group’s designers was cleaning up the heavily segmented dining room and the over-complicated ceiling detail of the original space, and finding a way to make use of the large windows along the southern wall to create a larger spatial impact. Puccini Group was tasked with remodeling a space that already experienced structural obstacles to the spatial flow. Constructing and designing a new space within the existing foundation encouraged Puccini’s designers to think of their initial plans differently to craft a seamless concept across design, branding, and in-restaurant elements.

Sustainability

Throughout the design process for Columbus Tap, Puccini Group worked to ensure that the building and outfitting of the new restaurant was both eco-friendly and locally-minded. During construction, Puccini’s designers repurposed the existing bar structure, reducing the amount of steel and concrete needed to build out the new flow of the space. That dedication to sustainability continued during the furniture selection process, as Puccini’s designers avoided molded plastics and opted for natural materials, such as custom Uhuru tables made from sustainably harvested trees. They also decided not to treat the window to allow for solar regulation of the space. Given Columbus Tap’s roots in Chicago history, Puccini Group’s designers selected local millworkers and sourced local materials such as Chicago-based Bulley & Andrews, LLC and Carroll Adam Hospitality Procurement from Wheaton, IL, to keep the design intent consistent throughout the process.