How We Designed Winnetka: Exterior
Behind the Scenes
We are so excited to bring a cafe to the Indian Hills district in Winnetka. As we arrive at the final stages of our build-out it is truly unreal to see the vision we have held so long in our heads come to fruition. As I shared in the previous post, we began this project with a building that was in very bad condition. However, we saw that the building had—and I say this at the risk of sounding like an HGTV host—very good bones. We looked at the broken windows, the piles of rubble, the broken-up concrete, and aged panels and saw what it could be. As we approach our finished product, I have to say that I think we were right. It looks pretty awesome.
inspiration for the exterior design
Very early on in this whole process, we found a photo taken—from everything I can tell—in the early 90s. I almost couldn’t believe it when I found it. We had been going back and forth with the architect on how we wanted our windows. We had settled on one design, but something felt off to me with the windows in the left bay, but I couldn’t place it. Very shortly thereafter, we stumbled on this photo which showed an earlier version of the building with shop windows in the left bay, and the whole thing painted white (not the faded weird yellow it was at the time). That was exactly what we were envisioning, but instead of being in my imagination, it was a piece of history—a piece we wanted to dig back up and bring to life.
It was always our intention and hope to be able to restore and reuse the original existing panels on the building, but it was unclear exactly what it would take to make that happen. With several layers of paint, dents, holes, and just general aging, we weren’t sure if there was any life left in them. We were ecstatic to discover that the panels were in great condition beyond some metalworking needed to patch and repair sections damaged by holes or dents. Our goal was to adaptively reuse as much as we could, so being able to keep all the exterior panels was a huge success, especially as this unique feature was what caught our attention in the first place.
Although we don’t have any photos of the original building, the bottom layer of paint shows the Texaco green stripes on the top of the building and the bottom ribbon around the base of the building. We wanted to bring that back to life, but with our Tala blue.
Designing the patio
The decision was made to add a canopy attached to the building to extend our outdoor seating for as long as possible throughout the year. With a small interior, we knew that the extensive patio would be a huge asset to this space, and extending its use throughout the seasons would be key. We chose the placement of the canopy to mimic a typical gas station, and although there was never an overhang on this building, it feels entirely native now that it’s there.
The rest of the site was designed in conjunction with the Village. We had close to a dozen design meetings, with Teska drawing up beautiful plans that would meet the needs and aesthetic tastes of everyone involved. Our main goal was to make this large patio a place that felt welcoming to the community. This corner has heavy pedestrian traffic and a bus stop, so we really wanted to make sure the space felt large and accessible to everyone. We love that there isn’t a clear line between where the community stops and our business begins—after all, we see our cafe as part of the community. We hope that the wideness of the site paired with the openness of the building—which is almost entirely windows—will lend itself to a beautifully welcoming experience.
What about the inside?
The inside has been the biggest transformation by far. There is so much to say about the design of this building, though, that I couldn’t possibly fit it into one blog post. Stay tuned for transformation photos and design inspiration for the interior soon!
Joanna Tong
Joanna is one of the owners here at Tala, heading up Operations and Strategy. Born and raised in Minnesota, she moved to Illinois in 2014 with no intention of staying long-term until the idea of Tala came to light. When not in the office or the cafe, you can find her in a forest preserve enjoying the outdoors or at home hanging out with her cat.