Café 2 at MoMA New York, New York
The Museum of Modern Art includes two restaurants designed by Bentel & Bentel and operated by the noted restaurateur Danny Meyer. On the first floor there is The Modern, the ample bar-dining and fine dining destination designed to function separately during and after museum hours. On the second floor, reached only through the museum and offering a sophisticated selection of light meals and beverages, is Café 2. The space allocated to Café 2 is essentially one floor of the 1964 museum addition designed by Philip Johnson, a long narrow space with views to the street at one end and the museum garden at the other. In order to optimize the number of museum-goers who can be served, most of the seating is at long communal tables. The "fast-casual" serving strategy applied here improves on the traditional cafeteria by eliminating meal trays and check-out lines, as well as the space-consuming pick- up stations. The time spent on line at the Café 2 entrance can be put to use choosing menu options from blackboard-style listings on a wall of the access corridor. From the head of the line, one is directed to a counter backed by an enticing view of cheeses and prosciutto in a walk-in refrigerator. After placing an order and paying there, the diner takes a number and chooses a seat anywhere in the room, where the order will be delivered. (Café 2 has recently tried a more traditional service, where staff members lead diners to tables and take their orders there — the wall menu still serving to speed up their selection. The restaurant design accommodates that system equally well.) To serve the "community" of museum-goers, who may be seeking a respite from visual stimulation, most elements of Café 2 are simple in form and within a limited color range. The principal displays to be seen here are the foods in custom-designed glass cases — not unlike those that protect art objects in the galleries — and wine bottles in backlit perforated stainless steel tubes. The architects designed the tables in the manner of those in a monastery refectory, reflecting the shared devotion to art and ritual seriousness attached to museum-going.
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