It’s the wildly popular and tasty brainchild of Chef Aaron Adams and his biz partner Dinae Horne.

We first met Aaron and Dinae when their shop was located two doors down from our HQ.  But with the crush of folks flocking to that location, Portobello quickly outgrew the space.

Aaron and Dinae recently opened their new, more expansive digs at 1125 Southeast Division Place and it’s a really cool spot.  An entire long wall is clad with a collage of reclaimed wood that Dinae and Aaron sourced from all over Portland, and whimsical pen art depicts forest plants and creatures throughout the space.

What’s more, the table tops and bar counter top were created by Hammer & Hand from upcycled barnwood.  Take a look at the pics by bright designlab.  Pretty nifty…

-Zack

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If Portland is the center of the “plot-to-pot” movement, then ice cream maker Salt & Straw is its newest standard bearer.  Owner Kim Malek opened her first cart on May 26th (between 17th and 18th Avenues on NE Alberta Street), and her farm-to-cone ice cream has already taken the nation by storm, garnering a wave of media attention, including a glowing review by the Wall Street Journal.  

“Our ice cream is handmade in small-batches using only all-natural dairy with the best local, sustainable and organic ingredients Oregon has to offer, as well as imported flavors from small, handpicked farms and producers around the world,” states Salt & Straw’s website.  “We start with local cream from Lochmead Dairy in Eugene, Oregon. All their cows were born right there on their third generation, family farm – so we know it’s the highest quality we can get and super fresh.”

This focus on the local and the sustainable will be physically expressed by the “bricks-and-mortar” of Salt & Straw’s new scoop shop at 2035 NW Alberta St.  Designed by architect John Cooley and built by Hammer & Hand, the commercial remodel will be a showcase of locally-sourced reclaimed wood.  We’re using clear vertical grain (CVG) fir from the bleacher seats of Lewis and Clark College’s original athletic stadium, barn wood from the barn at the Oregon State Hospital of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest fame, rafters from a local deconstructed commercial warehouse, and native black walnut milled from locally-salvaged trees.

And we’ll build Salt & Straw‘s new custom-made “community table” from All-heart Southern Yellow Pine salvaged from a demolished high school in Yakima, Washington.

This heart pine has a pretty fascinating story…  During the struggle to unionize timber companies in Southern Oregon during the late 50s and early 60s, mills began to shut down, curtailing the supply of Oregon pine for the ongoing building boom in schools and other public buildings.  Builders began searching far-and-wide for an alternative and found All-heart Southern Yellow Pine from the Southeastern US.  About a half-century ago, the builders of the high school in Yakima used this wood to construct the (now-demolished) school building.  So Salt & Straw’s community table will embody a narrative of Oregon’s timber and labor history (again, a la Ken Kesey … but this time from Sometimes a Great Notion.)

A lot to think about as you savor that scoop of honey-balsamic-strawberry-with-cracked-pepper ice cream!

– Zack

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In a blog post here last month I wrote about our work with Salt & Straw building its first bricks-and-mortar location at 2035 NE Alberta Street, Portland.  Described by founder Kim Malek as a mercantile-style shop (see Portland Monthly’s pic to the left to see what she means), the new space features furniture and building components handcrafted from reclaimed wood in Hammer & Hand’s shop, salvaged library shelves for product display, local artwork, and of course Salt & Straw’s signature fusion flavors.

For Friday’s opening, Allison Jones wrote an excellent piece in  Portland Monthly’s Eat Beat blog, Inside Salt & Straw’s Scoop Shop, featuring lots of nice photos of the space and its wares.

Eater.com also picked up the story (see here).

Enjoy!  We have.  In fact, Salt & Straw is so delicious that Hammer & Hand did the entire remodel in exchange for free ice cream.

– Zack

P.S. Okay, just kidding about the payment in ice cream … but it is pretty fantastic stuff.

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“Then we set out with wild abandon.”

That’s how Hammer & Hand’s Kevin Guinn described the feat of choreography and carpentry that culminated in the new Salt & Straw ice cream scoop shop on Portland’s NE Alberta Street.  (See full image gallery here.)

All photography by bright designlab. 

Kim Malek, Salt & Straw’s proprietor, hired Hammer & Hand and architect John Cooley this summer to design, build and open the first bricks-and-mortar location of her famed ice cream venture.  Earlier that season she was operating out of a cart and doing just fine, I might add, with a raving Wall Street Journal review to prove it.  But it was time to expand.  Quickly.

The Salt & Straw scoop shop project presented just the kind of commercial remodel challenge that gets us fired up: demanding constraints, compelling design, and the chance to really make a difference in the success of a cool business.  That excitement and engagement comes through when the project team talks about their work there.

“It was nothing short of miraculous,” said Kevin, project supervisor for the project. “It’s an ice cream store, so we recognized that the bulk of her business happens in a 4-month window.  Our job was to get in, get out, and get her open.  The store opened the second week of August, just four weeks after work started.”

No small feat given that the surrounding building was in the midst of an intensive renovation of its own.

“The building was being transitioned from a retail and wholesale glass facility to a multi-use commercial and residential building, so we had a minefield to negotiate with contractors doing work all around us,” said Kevin.  “We had a shell available to us, but we had to box the space in to secure the place.”

Given these physical and time constraints, client, builder and designer had to work together effectively or all bets were off.  And it all started with the client.

“Kim was on the ball with getting everything taken care of on her end, and really getting her vendors to deliver,” said lead carpenter Steph Lynch.  “And when she asks, she receives.”  As a fellow-wrangler and doer, that’s something Steph respects.  “It’s great that her business is doing so well, because she really deserves it.”

The project demanded nimble and flexible problem-solving.

“We went through the quintessential design/build process on this project,” said Kevin.  “Things changed in the field daily, we adapted to the surroundings, and just blasted through with the help of an excellent designer and an incredible lead carpenter.”

Steph’s carpentry expertise stood out to the architect as well.

“The contractor is always critical,” said John, the architect.  “We had a really tight time frame on this job, and money is always a consideration.  If I’m going to go through every little detail so that someone can build it, it’s going to take a ton of time and cost lots of money.  So it’s a huge help to work with Hammer & Hand and the expertise they bring to a job.  We’d have a site meeting with Steph and say ‘hey, we need a shelf support, lets brainstorm some options.’  Steph knew the options, how to build them, and which were cost-effective from a constructability standpoint.”

The in-house millwork capability of Hammer & Hand’s woodshop was also critical.

“The project called for a custom table and bench made from reclaimed fir, an Oregon Walnut-topped counter at the window, floating shelving, sign boards, and the adaptation of antique cabinetry and even old shelves from Multnomah County Library,” said Kevin.  “We were able to meet our tight deadlines because our master jointer Dan Palmer produced all of those furnishings in-house.  And he did so using old-school jointery techniques that really spoke to the vibe of the space.”

Client, designer, and builder all were committed to creating a space that was true to Salt & Straw: local, sustainable, hand-crafted, unique, authentic.

“We adapted a lot of salvaged materials and objects and built them into this modern setting that spoke to the mercantile feel that the client was after,” said Kevin.  “We worked closely with the client and architect to provide an authentic old fashioned feel without coming off as the ‘ye olde ice creame shoppe’.  That’s the fine line we were walking there: to achieve the authenticity the client was after.  Not kitsch.”

(Read more about the project’s upcycling narrative in this Field Notes blog post: “Salt & Straw’s commercial remodel celebrates the local and sustainable”)

As the architect, John worked closely with Kim to crafts design solutions that expressed her wants and dreams for the space.

“I love design and ensuring that spaces flow and work well in the end.  At the same time, my process is very dependent on what the client wants,” said John.  “Kim came to the process with examples of modern stuff from a shop in Seattle, but also much more historic stuff from Philadelphia.  What evolved was a combination.  I like the modern sensibility of expressing the structure of a building, and this space has lots of cool exposed block and old wood that we responded to.  The big interior window that allows people to see the ice cream being made uses trim that replicates the sizing and spacing of the building’s existing posts.”

Hammer & Hand’s ability to take a design vibe and improvise with it played a key role in the project as well.

“A contractor’s aesthetic can really help out a project, and Hammer & Hand is hired for that aesthetic and expertise,” said John.  “That really made the job quicker and less expensive.  It was tight, but they’re great at scheduling, coordinating and getting custom items in and resolved.”

Anything else to add?

“Good ice cream!” said John.

“Sorry John – It’s GREAT ice cream,” said Kevin.

– Zack

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Our recent commercial remodel of the Nuvrei Patisserie was a classic Portland creative community experience, with collaboration among kindred spirits across disciplines – in this case the builder, the designer… and the baker.

It’s also our latest example of nimble TI (tenant improvement) work that enabled a growing Portland business take its work to the next level.

“The Nuvrei project was another fast turnaround by our commercial team, led by lead carpenter Stephanie Lynch,” said Hammer & Hand project manager Kevin Guinn.  “Six weeks from permit to finish.”

Their new café sits across the hall from the Retail Studio – a space that bright designlab designed and we built.

Last April, Nuvrei’s operation was still confined to the basement of the building.  (Their kitchen is still based there, with dangerously-enticing pastry smells wafting up and into the building.)  Nuvrei had a small counter and cashier downstaires where they sold their pastries, but they were poised for growth.  A highly-visible upstairs space awaited, facing NW 10th Avenue, the streetcar, and the bustle of the Pearl.

“The guys at Nuvrei came by the Retail Studio one day and said, ‘hey, we really love your style, will you help us get the café together?'” Alissa Pulcrano, principal at bright designlab, told me.  “They wanted to create a space that was comfortable for Portlanders but also had the urbane feel of a French pastry shop.”

Alissa and fellow bright designlab principal Leela Brightenberg played with this juxtaposition throughout the design.

“We used warm reclaimed materials and infused the design with the modern playfulness of bright colors,” said Alissa.  “Industrial modern eclectic.”

Kevin describes the look as “clean and modern, with reclaimed chic.”

The image on left shows the café windows as seen from the sidewalk along NW 10th Avenue.  At right we see the ‘exterior’ wall inside the building’s main entry.  “We clad this wall with reclaimed barnwood to give the space a more quaint storefront feel, but offset it with the playful contrast of the vintage arrow,” said Alissa.  (All photography by bright designlab.)

The table at left that serves as an eating bar came from Porch Light’s collection.  The flooring is original, restored after parquet was removed.

The custom-built product display case at left is made of reclaimed wood, glass and laminate.  The carrera marble tabletops are supported by Pedrali bases (carried at the Retail Studio).  The chairs are a classic vintage French café chair, the “Marais Chair”, available through Industry West.

This photo shows a closer view of another product display case, with its warm, reclaimed wood.

This photo shows the café’s lighting scheme as well as the client’s playful, yellow-arrow take on crowd control.  The pastry case along the right is custom-designed, built from reclaimed wood, fabricated stone and steel.

Here’s another view of the pastry case, with its Chroma counter top and reclaimed wood cladding.

Here’s a close-up of the dynamic tension between the clean Chroma-and-steel counter top and reclaimed barnwood counter face.

More of the smooth mix of the modern and the reclaimed.

The warmth of the building’s brick walls is also embraced by the design.  Custom wrought-iron newspaper racks lend an industrial vibe.

“The design of the space kept within the character of this old building embedded in an increasingly sleek Pearl District,” said Kevin.  “By combining modern and period elements, bright designlab designed a small, extremely functional modern café that really fits the space.”

– Zack

P.S. Find out more about our commercial remodeling services here.

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“It was a real sprint out there,” said Hammer & Hand project manager Kevin Guinn of our recent adaptive reuse commercial remodel for Salt and Straw’s new location in Northwest Portland (see more photos of the build-out here).

photography by bright designlab

Salt and Straw NW, located at 838 NW 23rd Avenue in Portland, opened on April 27 to well-earned fanfare.  (See this Oregonian article and this write-up in Portland Monthly.)  In addition to Salt and Straw’s now-famous ice cream (augmented by new flavors created in collaboration with local chefs from Ox, Beast and other Portland restaurants), the NW location serves Stumptown coffee as well as pastries and desserts made fresh onsite.

In constructing her new store, Owner Kim Malek reunited the team that designed and built her first bricks-and-mortar location on Northeast Alberta Street last year: John Cooley as architect, Sarah Littlefield of Seattle Junk Love as interior designer/artifact-sourcer, and Hammer & Hand as builder.

In some respects the NW project was a reprise of the Alberta experience: same collaborators, old-time aesthetic, time-sensitivity, and engagement of Hammer & Hand carpenters in both the field and the woodshop to build custom furniture and built-ins.

But the two spaces started from two very different physical states.

The Alberta project was a build-out within a cleared-out shell.  Tabula rasa.

The NW location, on the other hand, was a complex palimpsest of former uses from former lives, most recently as Mio Gelato, before that Torrefazione Italia café, and from 1911 to 1986 the Esquire movie theater.

“Because this one was an adaptive refit, the complexity level went up,” said Kevin.  “You’d open one thing up and find that it affected three others.  So it really became an act of agility for lead carpenter Steph Lynch and her crew, handled with aplomb.”

The scope of the NW project was also larger, to match Kim’s expanded business model for the Salt and Straw NW location.  To provide space and facilities to prepare the freshly-made desserts and pastries served at the new store, the team added a kitchen and workspace to the space, cantilevered over a portion of the shop and the custom designed walk-in cooler.

Sarah Littlefield brought her designer’s eye and junk-picker’s touch to the interior décor of the space, salvaging old-school dairy and ice cream artifacts (seen on the shelving above) and retro metal chairs (below).  Movie reel boxes adorn the walls of the bathroom, homage to the site’s theater beginnings.

Hammer & Hand master jointer Dan Palmer and his woodworking team played a co-starring role alongside Steph and the field crew.

The upcycled wood tables, benches, built-ins, menu boards, stanchions, cabinet boxes and windows were all built in-house at Hammer & Hand’s woodshop.

To say that Kim has built a following for Salt and Straw is an understatement.  It’s more like a Portland ice cream movement, a renaissance of creamy, savory, and sweet devotion.  So it’s no surprise that her new spot is thriving and smashing sales projections.

“Yeah, she’s doing alright.  Normally lines don’t start forming ‘til 10 am,” quipped Kevin.

– Zack

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Interior designer.  Junk picker.  Hip chick.

Frequent Hammer & Hand collaborator Sarah Littlefield fuses all three personas into her work.  And she’s carved out a great niche for herself and her company Seattle Junk Love – creating interior environments that evoke and pay homage to bygone days, but in a way that feels real and alive.  Simple, no artifice.

We’ve felt an affinity for Sarah and her work since our collaborative project with her building out Kim Malek’s first Salt & Straw location on Portland’s Alberta Street.  Our ethos of upcycling wood and other materials jibes nicely with Sarah’s vibe.  Plus she designs really cool interiors.

We alluded to Sarah’s work here two weeks ago in a Field Notes post about the new Salt & Straw location in Northwest Portland that Hammer & Hand and Seattle Junk Love recently completed.  To achieve Salt & Straw’s trademark “old mercantile” aesthetic there Sarah drew from eclectic sources…

Oblong globe lights from a mid-century-modern Unitarian Universalist Church,

photography by bright designlab.

Street vendor chairs from Indonesia,

A teal table purchased from a guy in a parking lot at a swamp meet,

And old dairy paraphernalia sourced from throughout the Northwest,

Church pews from a Lutheran Church in Ballard and a clock from an old railway station outside Dallas. (not pictured)

All of this begs the question, “how do you find all this stuff?”  It’s a question that quickly gets at the nature of Sarah’s work and how she got into it in the first place.  Because you can’t just say, “hey, I need some old Indonesian street vendor chairs for this project, where can I find some?”  It doesn’t work that way.  It takes time and is more process-oriented.  Junk picking is the antithesis of the instant gratification, Amazon-fueled shopping that so many of us have become accustomed to.

“It began as a hobby for me, scouring salvage companies and flea markets,” she told me.  “Then I found myself helping friends find cool pieces for their homes or their new businesses.  Things just sort of took off from there.  Now when I find something interesting I’ll buy it and store it in my garage or basement for a future project or to sell on the blog.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that my partner loves it too!”

To feed this habit/passion/profession, Sarah travels throughout the Northwest a lot, checking out an auction here, an estate sale there, a favorite antique store in that far-flung little town, junk shops in another.  Place and history infuse everything.

For our commercial remodel project on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, Sarah will draw from her store of “picked junk” a bit, but also from a number of directed picking trips that she took specifically for this project to find the perfect pieces for the client and her unique new business.  Mum’s the word right now on the details of this Seattle remodel…  It’s a groovy project for a groovy new business, and we’re eager to share more when the time is right!

Next on tap for Sarah is an urban mercantile grocery, also on Capitol Hill, that will feature highly curated local foods and fancy wares, a la San Francisco’s Bi-Rite Market.  But lest you think Sarah only does commercial work, she also does lots of residential interior design and directed picks.  (P.S.  Also check out her Seattle Junk Love blog where you can peruse and purchase cool found objects.)

Please stay tuned for more about our Seattle commercial remodel collaboration…

– Zack (Connect with me at +ZacharySemke)

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Stepping into one of Portland’s two Salt & Straw scoop shops (see the two locations we built out for them here and here) certainly is the best of times. The artisan frozen treats alone are worth the wait in line. But the interior ambiance of the handcrafted and the nostalgic that owner Kim Malek has orchestrated is key to the scoop shop’s allure. Walking into the shop, you’re greeted with the aroma of fresh waffle cones being pressed and a rustic old merchantile design by architect John Cooley and interior designer Sarah Littlefield, and built by Hammer & Hand. The shop’s trestle table is a centerpiece of the design, inviting guests to sit and enjoy.

Photography by Jeff Tan

A staple in many European castles, trestle tables not only played host to bountiful feasts, but could be flipped to shield against intruding mealtime attackers. While Kim may not fear ice cream intruders at her shop, her dedication to local, sustainable sourcing and handcrafted objects made a custom trestle table built by general contractor Hammer & Hand the perfect feature for both scoop shop locations.

Designed and built by Hammer & Hand’s Dan Palmer and Josh Tinker, the trestle tables capture a rustic aesthetic with salvaged and reclaimed materials. We built the first table built for the Alberta Street location from reclaimed All-heart Southern Yellow Pine salvaged from a demolished high school in Yakima, Washington. (Check out more of our custom millwork here).

“I came up with a design based on other traditional trestle tables I’ve built, but this one had to be tweaked based on the dimensions of the wood itself,” said Dan, woodshop manager Palmer. “Traditionally, I’ve built trestle tables that were of thicker materials, but this reclaimed material was a thinner inch and a quarter stock. So I scaled some of the dimensions of the table design to accommodate what I thought would look right with the wood dimensions.”

The table is built with mortise and tenon joinery and as the only fixture in the scoop shop made of heart pine, it juxtaposes visually with the other fixtures in the shop. The accompanying benches also share similar design traits with the table.

“The benches are a bit of a downscaled replica of the table, with the same mortise & tenon joinery. It’s called a ‘keyed tenon’, essentially a wedge peg that’s run through a mortise that then runs perpendicular to the legs,” Palmer explained. “I used a reclaimed mahogany for the keys themselves which goes really well with the darker tones of the pine in the top. There’s a bit of a ‘pop’ there in terms of the color difference with the peg and the rest of the table.”

The second trestle table, housed at the NW location, is essentially the same design with different materials. “Kim didn’t want to use heart pine there, so we used reclaimed fir instead,” Palmer says. “We got the reclaimed fir from a cannery in Astoria, Oregon, and used it quite a bit in that project.”

These tables not only mirror each other, they reflect Salt & Straw’s dedication to locally sourced materials to produce quality, and tasty, goods.

– Jeff

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Hammer And Hand and Scott|Edwards Architecture’s restaurant design and build-out of Portland’s new Mexican eatery, Xico, harnesses 21st century building science and high performance building techniques to reach new levels of efficiency and comfort in restaurant design and construction. The restaurant, which opened at the end of August, uses 60% less energy for heating and cooling than a conventional restaurant.

photos by Mitchell Snyder Photogrpahy

“The energy savings are tremendous and support Xico’s greater sustainability ethos,” said Daniel Thomas, co-owner of both Hammer And Hand and Xico. “But equally important is the quality of the experience inside the restaurant. We wanted to create a human space, where the nature of the air and atmosphere put you at ease.”

The same high performance features that confer super energy efficiency on the Xico restaurant remodel also bring previously unattainable levels of comfort.

“People walk in and say ‘it’s so nice!’ and probably ascribe it to their visual experience of the space,” said Daniel. “But it’s the ineffable and invisible that makes the restaurant feel so good – the nature of sound and air and comfort. It isn’t something you can quantify, but it’s a core reason we build this way.”

Xico occupies the ground floor of the newly remodeled Glasswood Building on Portland’s Southeast Division Street. The upstairs floor is now the nation’s first commercial Passivhaus retrofit and houses Hammer & Hand’s corps of building science technicians.

Passivhaus certification (aka “Passive House”), the world’s most stringent building energy standard, demands strict levels of airtightness and energy performance. For all practical purposes it is nearly impossible for a commercial kitchen to attain Passivhaus certification; the cooking energy demands and air exchange needs are too intense. But by employing Passivhaus design and construction techniques to the restaurant remodel at Xico, the project team still achieved revolutionary energy efficiency and comfort.

The design and construction of Xico incorporate these high performance building features:

1. Airtight, super-insulated building envelope to control heat, cool and moisture.
2. Advanced mechanical systems, including: (a) a balanced, high-capacity heat recovering ventilation (HRV) system that transfers heat (or cool) energy from spent exhaust air to fresh intake air, and; (b) a ductless minisplit system that provides heating (or cooling) at 200-400% efficiency.
3. High performance, fiberglass-insulated windows.
4. Variable-speed range hood with temperature sensors to allow hood fan to ramp up and down as cooking activity waxes and wanes.

“From the start, the team at Xico was motivated by the desire to reach for the very best,” said Daniel, “and this commitment to excellence was matched by the build-out of the space.”

– Zack

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Located at the corner of Rainier Avenue and Findlay Street, Big Chickie will be a quick-service neighborhood eatery specializing in pollo a la brasa, Peruvian-style charcoal rotisserie chicken. Named in honor of Matt’s busy mom and the pollo a la brasa takeout his family loved growing up, the new restaurant will open this summer.

The last few years have brought exciting new development to Hillman City, which has struggled to attract development in the shadow of its popular/well-known neighbor Columbia City. Big Chickie promises to add a jolt of momentum to that development, and we’re honored to be part of the effort. The site, a former service station that served the neighborhood for years, is a central and highly visible one, with thousands of passersby every day. So its revitalization will have both practical and symbolic impact.

Pergola construction at our restaurant build-out of Big Chickie.

Big Chickie has considerable momentum already, earning a nice article in last week’s Seattle Met, a mention in Eater, and several hundred followers on its recently-launched Facebook page.

We’ll keep you posted on progress and look forward to sharing stories about the collective effort and talents going into this project of transformation.

– Zack

Team members Eli Semke (lead carpenter) and Suzanne DuBois (project administrator) review plans.

Construction of the interior of Big Chickie is underway.

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