B3 Designers, which has gone from strength to strength since launching in 2002, has unveiled its latest project, which captures a little bit of America into the F&B areas of Frankfurt’s Marriott hotel…
Restaurant and hotel interior design specialist, B3 Designers has recently unveiled its latest interior design and branding project. Champions Bar & Restaurant, located within Frankfurt’s Marriott hotel, is a European sports bar and restaurant serving classic bar dishes and drinks in the German city’s central district of Innenstadt.
The previous bar and restaurant, with its all-American theme, had been an iconic destination in Frankfurt for decades. Marriott’s design brief to B3 for the refurbished 220-cover bar and restaurant was to work around the themes of its history and heritage, sports, burgers and beer, to create a space where guests can enjoy themselves in a casual and relaxed environment. To bring this brief to life, B3 Designers has developed a design that completely celebrates a nostalgic, vintage European sports bar.
The heritage look-and-feel is woven throughout, starting gently at the entrance door inside, with a vintage trophy display. Once inside, the large bar featuring fluted timber, sits centre backed by a wooden menu display with old-school scoreboard-styled lettering. The furniture includes a mixture of high-bar seating and long communal oak timber tables with bench seats, and in the lower dining area is a mix of full-length curved booth seating, leather-upholstered banquettes with high back rests, and lower-level tables and chairs.
The abundant use of natural materials, rich tones and the darker colour scheme evokes a masculine, warm and comfortable vibe. The use of copper finishes on the bar’s countertop and beer taps is a nod to the traditional brewery tanks widely used in beer production. While black-and-white chequered tiling in the raised bar area and diamond-motif upholstery pay homage to the traditional football and referees kit. And the slatted timber booth seating evokes stadia-seating of a bygone era. Olympics and other sports-themed artwork and paraphernalia such as vintage footballs and boots, boxing gloves and bags, tennis rackets and photographs are scattered tastefully throughout the space.
One of the design challenges was working the 12 HD large projector screens into the design, and, more specifically, making sure they didn’t detract from the ambience during times when sports events are not being broadcast. B3 Designers has ensured the overhead screens are concealed discreetly above when not in use, and drop via a central motorised system, allowing the space to function as a standalone restaurant. Yet, during sports broadcasts, these screens play an important role in creating a premium seating sports experience around the restaurant.
