Cafe Metro
Lexington Avenue & 41st St.
NYC
All of the Cafe Metro shops are primarily take-out, although each has seating; a typical customer is on lunch break, taking food back to the desk or sitting down but not lingering, and he or she wants something better than a deli sandwich.
Here Rosenberg Kolb has expanded the core design, taking some elements such as pendant lighting, ceramic tile walls with a sophisticated palette and a contemporary, custom-designed shelving system. The modular, custom wall units can be used for food display or left open. They are abstract and geometric, clean and new.
A stainless steel curved panel behind the food counter was initially a way to accommodate the vent for the pizza oven; since then, it has become an iconic signature design element: the abstraction of a stove hood.