Mars 2112 attacks: 'Themer' shoots for Red Planet style

Nation's Restaurant News, Dec 14, 1998 by Elissa Elan

NEW YORK -- Despite recent troubles within the "eatertainment" galaxy, a new entry to the constellation, Mars 2112, was launched here, taking spaceage travelers on a culinary voyage to the Red Planet via an interactive experience designed to attract restaurant-goers' imaginations.

The 33,000-square-foot, 400-seat restaurant, which officially opened Sept. 14, is the $15 million brainchild of Paschal Phelan, founder and principal stockholder of the Mars 2112 Group, based in Kilkenny, Ireland.

The Philadelphia-based Daroff Design & Associates designed the restaurant, whose theme is based on a space trip to Mars in the year 2112. Housed on the first and subconcourse floors of the Paramount Plaza office building at the corner of Broadway and 51st Street, Mars 2112 features a $3 million, 22-seat flying-saucer "transporter" that "flies" guests to the restaurant's 100-seat Mars Bar, Cyber-street entertainment center-gameroom and crater-shaped dining rooms, the Crystal Crater Cafe and The Empress Grotto.

The theme-restaurants kitchen is large -- approximately 3,000 square feet -- and an additional 2,500 square feet has been allotted for food-related storage areas and the microbrewery. "There was no skimping on the creation of the back-of-the-house area," designer Karen Daroff said. "That was very important to the owner and to us, perhaps the most important part of the whole place. The back-of-the-house areas were phenomenally planned. And the quality of food produced in the kitchen is extraordinary."

"I wanted to create an immersive environment based around a journey with the goal of quality food being priorities one, two and three," Phelan said. "I wanted to have people feel like they were somewhere else. After six months of market research in London, New York and Philadelphia, we basically established that people wanted to go to a themed environment but didn't want to go back because of how poor the food was.

"Along the way we looked and interviewed design firms from Europe to California. And then I heard Karen Daroff speak at a forum, using words I was using - 'immersive, interactive environment.'"

You have to tear it down before you build it up

The project took a year to complete, and the designers said they faced some rocky terrain on the initial journey to planet Mars.

The space featured low-beamed ceilings that required several rounds of demolition, which had to be conducted after office hours so as not to disturb the tenants above.

"Creating a cohesive story-line, plus the constraints of the space, were the biggest challenges we faced," Daroff said. "But it's not until you get into the actual demolition that you see the consequences of each case."

According to Rick Marencic, senior designer and associate of Daroff Design, the restaurant was "a complex real-estate deal. Space was a problem; there was major demolition. Because it was a prototype-design project, various options and alternatives were considered."

From imagination to engineering: building a fantasy

In order to re-create Phelan's vision of Mars 2112, Daroff and her associates used a storyboard approach similar to that used in the making of movies.

"We needed to write the story, sketch it -- very much like storyboarding a movie," she said. "We had to draw every one of the concepts in two-dimensional prospective but feel the three-dimensional reality of the process. And we had to effectively convey the interpretation of Phelan's narrative and visualize his concept.

"We brainstormed on the storyboard process; we sketched, looked at research on rock formations and lava, and tried to incorporate it into the reality of what it might be like," she added. "It was not a re-creation of something in a movie. We had to create the reality, the three-dimensionality from our own minds. You have to use your imagination because no one has been there. We've got research, but you do have to imagine what Mars would really be like."

Daroff said that, ultimately, the most important aspect of the project was to "allow the customers to make the journey to Mars, lose themselves in fantasy and forget about everyday life for a while," while providing high-quality food and service in a dynamic setting.

Echoed Phelan: "Instead of walking into a themed location and having to use your imagination that you were in a special environment, we endeavored to make you feel that you were in a new and different environment. By way of comparison, if you walk into Planet Hollywood, you have to really imagine that Hollywood connection. Here you can really feel you've traveled into a completely different [place]."

Making the journey to Mars:] You're gonna lava this

Another challenge the designers faced was helping patrons find the restaurant's entrance, which is located in the Paramount Building's open, sunken plaza. As a result, decent signage space was unavailable to promote the concept.

"In terms of going downstairs to enter the restaurant, the visibility is somewhat challenged," Phelan said. "So we've created a facsimile flying saucer that is 22 feet in diameter by 9 feet deep. It will be a permanent fixture, and we hope it will give us substantial visibility on Broadway."