OpenTable had four basic goals for their new space:

1. Reflect the company’s passion for restaurants 2. Promote collaboration and encourage people to move around and interact 3. Transform a traditional Financial District office into something not so traditional. 4. Make efficient use of the space.

To accomplish that goal O+A gutted the existing interior, transforming three floors of conventional office space into a blank slate. Because everything OpenTable does is related to restaurants and cuisine, the design motif was self-evident. The challenge was to translate that motif—food, festivity, good times at the table—into a workable office context.

First step was to assemble the ingredients: natural light; clean, uncluttered surfaces; multi-layered sight-lines; a fresh palette of bright hues and playful picnic graphics and a variety of places to sit down and talk. To reflect the many different types of cuisines that OpenTable deals with, O+A sought to give each meeting space its own distinct character. While none of these spaces are specifically themed—Mexican, Thai, American Traditional—each has its own style and character. Each suggests a particular approach to meeting and working together that mirrors the many types of dining available to OpenTable’s customers: formal, informal, off-the-cuff.

In workplace design the most inspired touches often grow from the closest collaborations between client and designer. For the Table Story Wall in the OpenTable reception area O+A collected more than a hundred stories and pull-quotes about dining experiences from OpenTable’s employees. Then O+A’s interior branding team fashioned these stories and quotes into a wall graphic—a tribute to wonderful table experiences—and added three chalk boards for the “specials of the day”: notes to welcome guests, new table stories, doodles. The result is one of the most expansive and inviting reception areas O+A has ever produced.