Rice Pantry Marrickville Sydney
STRATEGY / BRANDING / INTERIORS / COLLATERAL
From Mekong to Marrickville.
A modern South-east Asian Diner & Bar.
As an established Asian food concept in Sydney, Rice Pantry celebrates the notion that everything goes well with rice! With a Vietnamese inspired menu, featuring rice as its staple, the brand and venue has attracted wide appeal with locals and out-of-towners alike.
BrandWorks was engaged by its founders to provide a brand refresh and interior design for its upcoming location in the upgraded Marrickville Metro, inner-west of Sydney. Expanding its menu beyond Vietnamese, the food concept will take influences across South-East Asia and broaden its appeal with a food-centric market demographic. Taking cues from its current brand, BrandWorks helped refine its brand mark and colour system, simplifying the lockup and providing a soft pastel colour palette that gently nods to their Asian origins whilst extending the collateral to include takeaway packaging, eye-catching bill posters and an instagram feed promising full bellies and warm hearts.
Rice Pantry’s interior focuses on an understated and welcoming palette where the food and produce are the hero. Terracotta tones, warm timbers and handmade tiles help create a welcoming and understated backdrop to the vibrant and flavoursome cuisine.
The facade has been specifically designed to be flexible and cater to an all day trade. On the left there is a recessed takeaway portal that caters to quick lunchtime bites. This is then able to be closed down in the evening by a flush roller door that will be finished with a custom graffiti style artwork. The venue is then transformed to read as a bar and restaurant for evening drinkers and diners.
The layout inside features a signature u-shaped bar design close to the facade line. This then wraps around and continues across the front kitchen, visually leading the patron inside. The calming finishes palette has been contrasted by eye catching shelving powder coated in Rice Pantry’s signature salmon brand colour. Blurring the lines between retail and hospitality, the patrons dine amongst produce, cook books, condiments and staples of the venue, adding to the authenticity of the offering. A feature birch-ply wall hanging mimics an aerial style view of rice paddies and terrain of their signature and hero staple ingredient.
Now open.
Image credits: Twenty Interiors (builders), @rice_pantry & Leigh Griffiths