Vertigo lifts restaurant design to new heights

Nation's Restaurant News, June 24, 1996 by Amy Zuber, Alan Liddle

SAN FRANCISCO -- Dizzyingly popular Vertigo Restaurant & Bar is proof that with a big enough budget and a knack for countering obtrusive inherited architectural elements, clever designers can find ways to transform potential decor negatives into positives.

Located on a ground-floor corner of San Francisco's landmark pyramid-shaped Transamerica Building, 15-month-old Vertigo has won critical acclaim for its design despite the presence of permanent massive concrete beams and footings. Designers for the former tenant, a Mexican restaurant company, tried to mask the concrete with lights and other materials, but Vertigo's creative team took a different approach, according to Jennifer Johannson, project architect of Engstrom Design Group.

Johannson explained that she incorporated the concrete into the decor but softened the stark gray elements with sheer window treatments and curved architectural details, including soffits, the drink rail in the bar and round booths. The room was infused with warm colors -- including plum saffron and pumpkin -- wood accents, jewel-toned fabrics and glass.

Vertigo takes up 7,800 square feet, features an exhibition cooking line and accommodates 150 patrons in the split-level dining room, 45 in a sunken private-party room and 30 in the bar. The design budget was about $1.6 million.

Managing partner Nancy J. Mootz, who was formerly vice president of San Francisco-based Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, said Vertigo's drawing power enables it to turn tables twice during each meal period. The average check is about $22 at lunch and $44 at dinner, she said.

With a glass ceiling that offers a spectacular -- almost disorienting -- view to the tip of the 48-story building, Vertigo lives up to its namesake, the classic Alfred Hitchcock cinematic thriller that was filmed in San Francisco and other nearby California locales. Despite the obvious pluses of the pyramid location, sources at San Rafael, Calif.-based Engstrom Design Group say the Vertigo space presented them with several major design challenges.

Though integral to the open and airy feel of the interior during lunch and the early evening hours and necessary to capitalize on the dramatic view up the side of the pyramid, the glass ceiling and skylights in Vertigo served up too much sun, Johannson said.

To reduce the glare and enhance the ambience, the glass was covered with various elements to filter the natural light. A wooden grid on one part of the ceiling obscures a skylight. On another area of the ceiling, there is a copper-mesh screen, which filters sunlight during the day and creates a shimmering effect at night. Translucent panels of fabric filter light, too, and add color to the restaurant.

Designers also wrestled with the multilevel setup of the space. "We wanted all three floors to feel integrated and part of the restaurant," Johannson explained.

The previous restaurant had a long bar in the center of the room that, in effect, broke up the surrounding dining areas. Johannson moved the bar to one side to create a single, large dining space and added raised seating along the wall opposite the bar. With it out of the way, diners throughout the restaurant have unobstructed views of the open kitchen.

"The creation of the food is the show," she said of the design theme that drove the bar repositioning.

Meeting handicapped-access codes while maintaining design goals also tested Vertigo's creators. They responded to the challenge by transforming the long wheelchair ramp into an architectural element that creates a heretofore-lacking street presence.

The ramp's copper columns, custom lanterns and arch at the entry as well as the way it winds through the cluster of redwood trees that surround the pyramid help pull people off the street and into the restaurant, Johannson said.

Design ties to the movie "Vertigo" are subtle but include a large mural with a reference to Mission San Juan Bautista, a setting in the film. In that same vein some fabrics have spiral and circle-shaped patterns that mimic the graphics used in the movie to suggest the central character's dizziness when he was looking down from high places.

"When opening a restaurant, I don't think you can ignore any of the three primary elements: great food, great environment and great service," Vertigo's Mootz said. "In this city especially you have to do a great job in all three.

"The design of Vertigo would not be enough to sustain the restaurant. But if the design didn't turn out as well as it did, the place would not be so successful," she added.

When conceptualizing Vertigo and budgeting start-up costs, Mootz built a financial model based on menu price points and check averages to determine what was needed to support the investment. When negotiating Vertigo's lease, she told the landlord: "To do this right, it will cost a fair amount of money. But if we do it right, we will attract the customer base we need to support the restaurant."

Mootz & Co., Transamerica Insurance Corp. of California and Blackman Flynn Investment Co. own Vertigo. Mootz and veteran San Francisco front-of-the-house specialist Doug Washington manage the restaurant.