parakeet café

Owner/operator of timely café concept launched in the La Jolla Village

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What we did:

Name & concept
Interior design
Brand strategy
Visual identity
Guest experience
Daily operations

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Being our neighborhood, we were craving something other than the seemingly dated La Jolla coffee experience. Coincidently an opportunity arose to partner in a new cafe development just a few blocks from Sixteenfifty HQ. It was a blank slate—the only requirement being epic coffee and an organic, healthy menu. Since birds are cool, we decided on Parakeet as the name and concept and ran with it, developing every aspect of what the café would be, how it would operate and how our guests would experience it.

Parakeets are cute and little, and so is the space. At just 600 sq. ft., smart space planning and a fun, eye-catching interior were critical.

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The biggest creative challenge was taking a tiny space and designing every aspect to maximize operational efficiency, ensuring the concept would be fiscally viable. Once this was solved, we layered in a warm and colorful decor complete with custom illustrated parakeet wallpaper and a pink neon sign. Sixteenfifty led every detail of the interior build out, even overseeing construction.

Parakeet Café gives locals a place to roost, visitors a great discovery, and millennials their instagram shot of the day.

The sourcing and alignment of all the right ingredients really make the ‘Keet sing.

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Now referred to by locals as “The ‘Keet,” it all started by us tapping into our deep network of hospitality connections to get all the right components to come together. From scouting and securing our head chef to bringing in an award winning roaster and consultant to create the village’s best coffee program, we assembled and worked closely with some smart birds to develop all the programming and operational structure of the café. Now a scalable concept, the ‘Keet is continuing to spread its wings with additional Southern California locations.
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