PIZZA DYNASTY MAKING WHAT'S NEW OLD AGAIN

CARRYING ON THE PIZZA TRADITION
BSR collaborated with the Anderson family, a three generations deep restaurant family in the Pacific Northwest, to develop their new pizza concept, Wicked Pie Pizza. The site selected was a 100 year old brick storefront in the historic district of Puyallup, Washington so the design had to be every bit as special as the space. Our collective goal was to create a neighborhood pizza spot that felt like it had been your favorite pizza bar hang-out for decades.

BACKSEAT BRANDING
It was decided early on that branding would take a back seat to restaurant experience. For a branding company that might seem odd but original, authentic, years-in-the-making eatery’s rarely have highly evolved branding. Their entire identity might be represented by something as simple as an ancient neon sign hanging in the window.

PLANNING THE SPACE
The interior was compact, nothing more than a long narrow rectangle. With space at a premium our first job was to determine how much room we would have to create the restaurant experience. A wood / gas combo pizza oven would be the centerpiece with the bar, skinny’d up as much as possible, running along one of the walls. The kitchen would be a rock n’ roll affair (small) but the restrooms were given special attention to make them as spacious as possible. With judicious use of space we were happily surprised. We had quite a bit of room to work with to create the restaurant experience.

THE RESTAURANT DESIGN
The look and feel of the restaurant was a calculated mix of old and new. Industrial steel chairs are paired with comfy banquettes, thick recycled wood slabs would serve as table tops and welded hot rolled girders serve as table bases. And vintage newel posts co-opted from the second story of the historic building ­were installed as partition posts.­ Lighting was also a key feature. A mix of original schoolhouse fixtures and re-purposed ceiling fixtures
were used ­as our main room lighting and several raucous colored glass chandeliers were added to highlight the darkened vintage copper paneled ceiling. To finish it off the entire interior was clad in local wire-cut brick and all of the woodwork received several coats of hand-brushed gloss paint giving it the appearance of having been painted over and over throughout the years.

WHAT ABOUT THE BRANDING?
Don’t worry, we didn’t skimp on the branding. A period feeling logo was designed occupying a creative personality-space somewhere between a classic luncheonette and a roadside biker bar. As one might expect the logo was rendered in classic neon. In addition we added “ghost signs” of the Wicked Pie branding to the interior, painted directly on the brick and re-purposed sections of hand-painted vintage billboards are hung from the ceiling reflecting colorful imagery and light down into the space.

YOUR NEW-OLD PIZZA BAR HANG OUT
The results were better than we could have imagined. From the day it opened Wicked Pie Pizza was an instant crowd pleaser and quickly became the neighborhood pizza spot that feels like it has been your favorite pizza bar hang-out for decades.