A Look Behind Local: Mission Eatery
September marks the 8th annual Architecture and the City Festival in San Francisco, a monthlong series of events featuring exhibitions, tour and lectures, all showcasing the wonderful history and budding future of architecture in San Francisco. Part of this year’s festivities: a look at four restaurants and how design and food came together successfully.
One of the restaurants and design teams that will be featured is Local: Mission Eatery. Designers Seth Pare-Mayer and Kelli Franz with atelier KS have participated in the event in the past. Franz said that while much of the talk will focus on the history of the restaurant and how it came to be, they will also focus on the how the entire process has a local feel to it.
“Through every single step of the process, our clients were trying to make intentional choices about what kind of materials to use, how it will affect the local economy and the community, how they can give back, how to integrate food education as part of a restaurant program,” she said. “I think it’s those type of features that make Local: Mission Eatery particularly interesting.”
Pare-Mayer said the restaurant serves as a reflection of the neighborhood it is in.
“Yaron, the owner, lives in the neighborhood just a couple of blocks away. What he understood from the starting point of this project was that if it’s not of the neighborhood and it’s not accepted by the residents, his business will fail,” he said. “And he wasn’t terribly interested in changing the character of the neighborhood very much because he loved it as is.”
With that in mind, Pare-Mayer and Franz set out in the community, talking to neighbors, working with local companies to get the tile and other building materials they were using and making Local: Mission Eatery every part of the community that it set out to be: an open environment for everyone to enjoy.
“The whole idea that Yaron was really adamant about is the transparency and honesty in food preparation and design,” said Franz. “So we have a walk-in refrigerator with a huge panel of glass so you can see everything that they’re storing back there. The chefs are all very visible so you can talk and ask questions. The openness of the restaurant was a design component that we worked on from the very beginning.”
You can join Pare-Meyer and Franz and the rest of the restaurant team as they will be leading a program as part of Architecture and the City on September 25 from 5-7p.m. at Local: Mission Eatery, 3111 24th Street.
Photo Credit: Local: Mission Eatery
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