The new James Squire Brew Bar + Restaurant in Brisbane, aka ‘The Charming Squire’ occupies the ground floor of the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre along Grey St. Activating the street edge, this Restaurant, Brewery and Café is a lively venue addition to the Cultural Precinct. With 70 metres of street frontage, the design approach adopted key strategies for offering urban diversity and activation along its length. One of these was to consider the venues as a series of distinctly different shopfront typologies: The ‘hole in the wall’ café, closest to the train station. The ‘kitchen’ which is a cantilevered glass bay window, showing off the chef’s upcoming fare. The ‘restaurant’, a single tall room, offering a more formal dining space within a generous volume. The ‘Main Beer Hall’, with a gleaming working brewery on an overhead gantry that ‘elevates’ the process of brewing to a form of ‘industrial alchemy’. Below, an amber glass box holds the kegs before being sent to the long copper bar for tasting and serving. The project was completed in association with architects Collins + Turner and D’Occhio.
2015 Timber Design Awards, Winner: Timber Flooring
2015 Eat Drink Design Awards, Shortlisted: Best Bar Design
2015 Australian Interior Design Award, Finalist: Hospitality Design
2014 Eat Drink Award, Runner Up: Best Bar Design