Founded in Atlanta in 1974, family-owned national pizza chain Mellow Mushroom has worked with a slew of artists and designers over the years to craft their unique interiors. For their new Decatur, GA, USA location, Square Feet Studio worked with local artists and the restaurant’s internal team to play with the notion of punk and how renegade subculture becomes popular culture. Banquette details reference 1970’s arcade game consoles.

Locally made steel bar stools and wall panels are coated in layers and layers of bright automotive paint. Classic modern pendants hung in clusters resemble stage lighting and are used to separate the dining room from the bar. An installation of bare bulbs that are linked by exposed conduit creates a weblike matrix across the low ceiling in the bar. Bold colors in a black field leap from surface to surface in saturated discord.

Glossy tiles line the kitchen wall facing the dining room and migrate to the floor where the same tones are rendered in marbleized linoleum. The otherwise dissonant floor pattern is eased into a surprising order and zones become defined as the yellows congregate around the bar, the reds around the tall banquettes and the blues in the dining room.

Design: Square Feet Studio
Photography: Andrew Thomas Lee