Peter Gronquist and Mark Mothersbaughs adorn the walls as well and promote conversation in the rustic 2,500-square-foot interior. The booths and chairs are covered with an array of rich textured leathers, complemented by dark woods and a reclaimed herringbone floor. As Warner describes it, some of the select taxidermy pieces along the bar show animals mating, which she thought would certainly “get people talking.” “With Park, we took a little bit from a lot of things we all love,” says Warner. “It has a lot of everyone’s personality in it. If you get to know the people who are involved in the project, you start to realize that [co-owners] Ryan [Doherty] and Justin [Weniger] and myself are all very quirky people and we are all very laid-back and funny. So I think Park has a lot of comedy to it. It’s beautiful and has a lot of rich texture, but we don’t take ourselves very seriously all the time either, and we tried to carry that into the design. We wanted it to be a place where people feel A stylized painting of a very comfortable being woman wearing a meat dress very casual.” Out back, plants and hangs next to the kitchen.
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flowers overtake the “We wanted Park to be a place landscape of the patio, where people feel comfortable creating objects d’art from being very casual.” eroded items such as a footed bathtub overlooking the outdoor bar and a Cinderellastyle carriage situated on the rooftop, each blooming with brightly colored flowers. Framed by ornate fencing, the 2,500-square-foot exterior boasts wood salvaged from an old barn and offers antique wood bistro tables for dining and conversation, as well as the hopscotch space made with mosaic tiles. An 8-foot-tall archangel statue atop the fireplace provides a stunning centerpiece, while a small outdoor bar emulates an aging greenhouse. Tucked in back of the garden is a secret smoking area complete with games—including an oversized Jenga—and the seesaw, as well as custom art installations. The feel and look of Park on Fremont is completely unique, and quite strikingly different from that of the ownership group’s first endeavor at Commonwealth, located just across the street. [ED NOTE: To read our profile of Commonwealth, revisit the January 2013 issue of Bar Business Magazine here: http://issuu.com/barbusinessmagazine/docs/jan_2013_ bar_business_magazine/53]. However, Warner and her co-conspirators created Commonwealth knowing fully well that they hoped to bring Park to life as well; and while it was a challenge to develop two distinct venues stemming from the same collective mind, they also worked on both knowing that the two bars could play well off of each other to create a bar-hopping environment in a city that is sorely lacking such a scene. “In our minds, Commonwealth was never going to be a oneand-only project,” explains Warner, who along with Doherty and Weniger worked with local businessman Michael Parks and founder of Insomniac Events, Pasquale Rotella, to bring April 2013 Bar Business Magazine
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