Robusto Cafe, Chicago

This 3,000 SF  restaurant is constructed of a steel frame with masonry infill and has a custom cast stone facade. The classical vocabulary used in the design defers to the Elks Memorial, on the adjacent to the east. The restaurant interiors evoke the feeling of dining in a formal outdoor park pavilion.  The building is set back twenty feet from the street to create a comfortable outdoor cafe, and preserve the open vista eastward down Diversey to Lincoln Park. Three large french doors open onto the cafe from the restaurant. The scale, design and materials are sympathetic to the surrounding context. The result is a transformation of a dilapidated site into a productive and attractive business that serves both the neighborhood and nearby Lincoln Park.