The transformation of the Broadway Building’s ground floor into a new sushi restaurant and nightclub takes its place as a part of this resurgence, and has helped bring the building full circle -- once again attracting a young and stylish clientele.

Established opposite the transparent Vine Street entrance is the East Bar, an elegant yet energetic space, consisting of a field of extruded and glowing resin and stainless steel pillars which encase floating sushi knives. A luminous image of a red kimono hangs overhead, evoking the vitality of the street outside.

The centerpiece of the restaurant is a 4-sided sushi-bar, where chefs are put “on stage,” creating and serving their craft beneath the traditional folds of the black and red fabric Noren.  Conceived as a kind of luxurious wooden Bento box, the sushi space is carved with compartmentalized dining booths, while backlit panels portray modernized fragments of the traditional Geisha -- as well as other provocative and sensual imagery of the skin and body.

In contrast to the refined finish of the restaurant, the simple raw space of the nightclub draws on the artifice of a continuous coarse drapery set floor to ceiling, enveloping the lounge.  The drapery, depicting a three-dimensional representation of space on its surface, creates a tromp l’oeil environment—an enfilade of space receding well beyond the concrete limits of the building.  Table lamps hung upside down by their cords over low tables and mismatched chairs organize the space.

The pair of spaces is one piece of a larger movement to re-interpret the classic elegance and glamour of old Hollywood.  This new establishment, though avowedly contemporary in its sensibility and wit, nevertheless embodies this Hollywood essence.