the crack shack littlE italy

LOCATION:

San Diego. CA

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, The Crack Shack was unique in downtown San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood as an all-outdoor dining experience. The concept is a celebration of San Diego’s famous climate, proving that an outdoor space can host a bustling restaurant with just as much efficiency as an indoor location can. In collaboration with the design team, McCullough encouraged a direction that would embrace the original architecture built on the site the Crack Shack would call home, formerly an industrial space. The team developed a truly adaptive re-use approach – the original structures would stay with one primary improvement: they would be completely striped down to the frame, opened up to the exterior, and activated in ways not yet seen in the fast food restaurant scene. Embracing the local environment and creating a seamless connection to the outdoors is what made these restaurants unique and vastly popular within the surrounding communities.

It was our goal for this project to activate the outdoor spaces in an enlivening way, complementary to the architectural design, that encourages people to gather, dine, and enjoy light-hearted fun in a comfortable, energetic atmosphere.

Our design approach to achieve this was to employ simple, bulletproof furnishings and an extensive shade structure to ensure the comfort of guests as well as the long-term durability of the space. Is it a beer garden? Is it a small plaza? Is it a big front yard?

Guests are treated to ample outdoor seating, glowing lights, and several different lawn games such as cornhole and bocce ball that entice groups to stay and play. The Crack Shack blurs the lines we’ve drawn in our programmatic expectations with a design that appeals as much to children as it does adults.