XOCO by Rick Bayless

Rick Bayless, restauranteur of fine Mexican food, opened his new restaurant, Xoco, last fall. Bayless' take on Mexican street food resides on the corner of Clark St. in River North, next to his two other restaurants, Frontera and Topolobambo. The visual difference between Xoco and it's neighbors is the bright blue canopies covering only the windows in a round shape, rather than long boxy canopies, as well as the large windows that look directly into the kitchen, so that you can watch the cooks prepare the Mexican hot chocolate and churros fresh every day. Xoco also loudly proclaims some of the menu items in the windows- “CHURROS” and “CHOCOLATE”.

Inside, it's very easy to figure what to do. Directly to the right of the entrance is the line, with notes on where the ingredients are coming from (local, organic farms), and there are paper menus to pick up and peruse, in addition to a large blackboard with the menu handwritten in chalk. The paper menu displays the distressed logo in white on a burgundy background, the color of which can be found on some of the walls throughout the restaurant. Inside the menu, items are listed in a handwriting typeface, printed in the same burgundy color of the cover on cream paper flecked with burgundy pieces. They type choice, the flecking in the paper, and the distressed logo all come together to help give the menu a more handmade feel, which combined with the chalk menu all build up the intended feeling of a street corner vendor, but with more high class ingredients and better cooking equipment.

As you make it to the front of the line (they won't take your order until there is room for you to be seated, unless you're getting take out), you can see into the open kitchen, arranged as a line, all in stainless steel, with painted blue walls behind. Being able to see into the kitchen allows you to watch the preparation of all the food, including your own if you choose to wait up at the front. Having eaten from a street vendors before, I know that there are two ways to get your food- either it's all pre-made and wrapped up, so that you're buying a churro in a bag, or a churro off a pile of churros, or they prepare your taco in front of you, browning the meat, warming the tortilla, dropping in the tomatoes, and so this method of preparing the food in front of the customer is very similar to that second type of vendor. You know your food is all fresh, and it's going to come to you warm and delicious. That being said, this is a licensed restaurant, and when you get your food, it comes on either a thick white porcelain plate, or in a wire basket with paper lining. Since you are ushered to your seat once your order is placed, the wait staff brings your food out to you to keep too many customers from standing around the line waiting on food.

Once seated with your food, you notice that the walls are primarily a golden yellow color on the top, and around the ceiling, but below table level, the walls are painted a burgundy color. The colors have the subtle richness that I would associate with 'Mexican' without being overwhelming, or too nationalistic for a restaurant owned by a well-renowned white chef. The subtlety helps me to feel warm and comfortable in this restaurant, it definitely feels like it should be warm Mexican food, and not anything else; Italian or Asian food would feel out of place in this color scheme, cheap diner food would be overwhelmed by the amount of attention paid to color and design.

Even the food is vividly colored. The guacamole is the bright green of avocados, with flecks of fresh red tomatoes and white onions, the fresh nachos are an almost translucent version of the gold on the walls. The sandwiches have fresh green lettuce, harvest-orange chorizo meat, warm manila colored bread, and vivid red and green dipping sauces. The food is laid out on a brown counter, which really helps the color of the food stand out and look as fresh as it is.

While the color of the restaurant is definitely more dominant, you'll also notice photographs laid out around the room, in neat orderly rows at on the yellow-painted portion of the wall. These photographs are all black and white, and all the same size and by the same two artists. They are all set up and equal distance apart from each other in their single row. Each picture portrays some piece of Mexican culture, most often relating to food, and the street vendors that were the inspiration for this restaurant. These images definitely help to contextualize Bayless' selection of menu items, as well as the various inspirations and cultural signifiers of this food.

The clothing of the employees also fits into the theme. The wait staff who bring the food out, and the cashiers, all wear black pants, with black aprons and brown shirts, which feature the distressed name logo on the back, and an image of a romanticized turn-of-the-century Mexican cowboy, dressed almost as if they were Santa Ana, on the front. The black aprons are a subtle signifier that this food is more than just traditional street food, this is a nicer dining establishment, while the tee-shirts help to keep the image of the restaurant firmly rooted in Mexico.

Architecturally, the restaurant is laid out in a long rectangle. The short head end of the rectangle is the side that is set next to Bayless' sister restaurants on N. Clark St, while the long side spans half of the block on Illinois Street, where the entrance is. At the head is the rail-line kitchen with the ordering line back up to the door, and free water is available about halfway down the line next to the kitchen. Past the kitchen is the seating, most of which is at diner-style counters that face up to the window or a wall, with a few lower tables scattered throughout. In the center of the dining room is and egg-shaped section walled off, when standing on one of the flat edges you find the doors to the single-occupancy bathrooms, while the other edges of the egg all have dining counters running along them. Inside the bathrooms, you find more of the visual theme and cues from the main dining room; the bathrooms have gold walls, with burgundy painted below waist height, there are a few photographs from the series, and a relatively plain but nicer, shallow, white porcelain sink and matching toilet with flush-intensity options. I feel like the long and narrow setup of the restaurant does help to build the atmosphere, to build the idea of both a nice restaurant, but also the atmosphere of the street food served. Sitting in rows at a counter reminds me of sitting on a curb sharing a funnel cake at a festival, or standing up against a wall smoking while people pass by on the street. While the counter seating was probably necessary to fit as many seats in as they did, I think it really helps with the atmosphere, especially since they didn't cop out on it- there's enough regular seating to follow accessibility requirements, but the bathrooms were erected in the center of the dining area to provide more wall space to erect counters against.

Overall, I think the designers did a good job of thinking about all of the elements involved in creating the atmosphere for this restaurant. They were given a tricky job- a restaurant serving street food at about $10 a torta, or sandwich- and they turned around and created an atmosphere warm and inviting, with enough nods towards street vendor culture that the white, urban downtown office workers would understand where the foods and flavors were coming from, without feeling like they were slumming around having to depart from their safe neighborhoods, or feeling like they were being ripped off price-wise. Rick Bayless' name will get customers into the restaurant, but it's ultimately the delicious food and well-designed comfortable atmosphere that will keep them coming back.