Mekong Kitchen (2015)

concept & branding

it's NOt always a PIcnic

Trang Nguyen owns two successful Urban Picnic restaurants in San Francisco, one in the Financial District and the 2nd the SOMA. Both locations serve healthy California Vietnamese fare to hungry office workers. With the success of the first 2 Urban Picnic locations, she decided to take the opportunity to open her 3rd Urban Picnic in the Castro District. 

After about a year in a the Castro, the Urban Picnic concept wasn’t resonating with the neighborhood like Trang had expected.  She came to Plinth to develop a new concept and brand.

We started at the beginning.  Building a new concept starts with finding out what Trang’s passion was and then building a brand around it.  She wanted to broaden the appeal of Vietnamese food by teaching people about the cuisine and demystifying it, NOT by compromising its authenticity.

The Mekong Kitchen is a place where Vietnamese soul food is awakened by the spirit of modern culinary creativity.  It's a place where you can lose yourself in Vietnam’s fresh, vibrant, flavors and discover some of hidden treasures locked within.

The stamp inspired logo served to convey the dynamic and fresh nature of Mekong Kitchen's menu.  We designed the logo to be able to be used on future brand extensions like sauces and to go packaging.  After the design elements were established,  we hand illustrated the logo to signify the rustic, artisanal nature of the food.

A compelling brand experience has to flow seamlessly from it's online presence into the restaurant.  

To ensure cohesion,  we art directed the food photography, the interior design of the space, and created hand illustrated scenes of a romanticized Vietnam to adorn the walls.

In order to teach customers how to use the variety of fresh accouterments that came with each dish we designed new table top food guides.  

Our food guides featured illustrations which educated the unfamiliar and created a fun way for diners to interact.

Merely months after its debut, Mekong Kitchen received positive press from SF Gate.