Salt Traders

Austin, Texas

Salt Traders Coastal Cooking is the second installment of the seafood sister restaurant chain of Jack Allen's Kitchen, an Austin restaurant staple. The new restaurant utilized the structure of an existing steakhouse restaurant, revitalizing the dark and intimate space into a bright, open, and welcoming seafood concept. The 7,689 sf restaurant features a centralized bar that also incorporates their raw oyster bar and becomes a partition between the lounge and main dining sections.

Our challenge was to fast-track this project through permitting while navigating the unknown in the original building's structure. The dilapidated building needed an updated exterior design and new interior program.

Due to budgetary restrictions, we needed to maintain a majority of the existing facade. Using the coastal brand colors of Salt Traders and incorporating traditional materials you would find in any small beach town architecture, we revitalized the dark and heavy palette of the existing Texas Land & Cattle restaurant space. The updated facade provides a thoughtful response to the coastal brand of Salt Traders while further refining the architectural standards of the restaurant.

Reprogramming the existing dark and intimate space was crucial to the success of the customer experience. Positioning the bar into the center of the restaurant solved much of the logistics for how Salt Traders operates and became the activation point for the surrounding spaces. We once again removed much of the stone and timbers that lined the existing walls and updated them with a refined color and material palette that reflected the Salt Traders' coastal brand. The ceilings were exposed to reveal the building's structure, and a new weathered steel brand element floats delicately above the bar, showcasing the brand and salt blocks unique to their first location.

The Salt Traders brand's strength and coastal architectural design strategies allowed us to transform a dilapidated building into a place that, instinctively, places you near the ocean.

Services

Architecture

Interiors

Photography

LEVY DYKEMA