Designing for Vacation Mode
Updated: Aug 17
Creating the feeling of a fun escape without leaving the neighborhood.
A restaurant doesn’t have to take you far to make you feel like you’ve gotten away.
That idea shaped the design of Poolboy Taco, a 2,100-square-foot restaurant in Phoenix’s Arcadia neighborhood.
Poolboy began as a taco stand at Aspen Food & Wine, where music, crowds, and the temporary nature of a festival created an energy all its own. When the concept found a permanent home in Phoenix, the challenge was translating that carefree spirit into an everyday restaurant without simply recreating where it started.
The client’s vision was less about a destination and more about a state of mind: even a quick Tuesday lunch could feel like a fun break from the day.
Music on. Indoor-outdoor energy. A casual atmosphere. Thirty minutes that feel a little removed from the everyday.
That became Poolboy’s version of vacation mode, and ultimately, the design brief:
How do you turn a feeling into a physical space?
Start with the mood, then find the design language.
When you’re designing something that doesn’t quite exist yet, iteration is part of the process. Poolboy wasn’t about recreating a specific place; it was about translating the energy and culture of a festival into a permanent, physical environment. Our first design direction didn’t fully land, and that was okay. It allowed us to go back to the core feelings, memories, and influences that felt most genuine to our client and better understand what we were really trying to create.
Rather than fearing the ideas that don’t get approved, we see them as an important part of getting to the ones that do. Each iteration helps sharpen the vision, uncover what feels authentic, and move the design closer to where it needs to be. In this case, revisiting those foundational influences ultimately led us to the direction that became Poolboy today.
Through our House of Cards discovery exercise, the conversation shifted from what Poolboy should look like to how someone should feel while they’re there.
Music became an important part of that conversation. Duke Dumont’s “Ocean Drive” and “I Got U” were shared as references for the mood: upbeat, carefree, summery, and easy. They communicated something a traditional mood board couldn’t quite capture and gave us a shared creative language for translating that feeling into the space. That same energy carries through the music played in the restaurant today.
It's a good reminder that in hospitality design, inspiration doesn't always have to come from another interior.
So consider this one part of the mood board. Turn it up and keep reading...
Turn the feeling into a visual language.
Once the mood was clear, we began translating it into the details that would shape the Poolboy experience.
The indoor-outdoor ordering counter takes a direct cue from the casual ease of ordering poolside, while large openings connect the dining room and patio and allow the experience to flow naturally between the two.
Color became another way to set the mood. The warm yellow exterior creates an immediate sense of optimism, pale aqua seating brings a cool contrast, and hits of red add energy throughout the space. Paired with high-gloss finishes and an abundance of natural light, the palette feels sunny, playful, and distinctly Poolboy.
Curved soffits and sweeping banquettes carry that same sense of ease into the architecture, while striped umbrellas, greenery, and the signature seal extend the personality outdoors.
No single feature creates the experience on its own. It's how these decisions work together that gives Poolboy its distinct point of view.
Think beyond the interior.
Atmosphere isn’t created by finishes alone.
It’s the playlist that’s on when you arrive. The transition from outside to inside. How guests approach the ordering counter. The daylight coming through the windows. The relationship between the patio and dining room.
For food and beverage design, that broader view matters.
The interior doesn’t exist in isolation. It works alongside the brand, service model, operations, music, and other guest touch points to create a cohesive experience.
At Poolboy, that meant pairing a casual, fast taco concept with a highly considered restaurant interior that still feels approachable and easy to use. Thoughtful in its design, but casual in how it’s experienced.
Make it unmistakably yours.
There’s another important part of designing around a feeling: knowing when to stop referencing inspiration and start creating something that belongs to the brand.
Poolboy wasn’t designed to recreate Aspen or transport guests to a specific resort destination.
It needed to feel like Poolboy.
The signature seal, yellow exterior, curved architecture, playful palette, integrated retail, indoor-outdoor connection, and music each contribute to a visual and sensory language specific to the concept.
That’s an important distinction in restaurant design.
A strong hospitality concept doesn’t need every element fighting for attention. It needs those elements working together to reinforce the same idea.
For Poolboy, the goal was to take something as intangible as “vacation mode” and give it a physical language of its own.
And that’s often where a strong hospitality concept finds its identity: not in one big design move, but in the consistency of all the smaller ones.
Photography: Kevin Brost
