Hannah Collins was waiting tables at trendy Italian restaurant Beretta when she landed her first major restaurant design project: A two-story Argentinian Steakhouse called Lolinda, set to open in 2012. Now among the city’s most in-demand designers, Collins was then an Academy of Art student in her early 20s. But when she learned that Beretta’s big-name owner, Adriano Paganini, was opening a new business across the street, she knew she had to be a part of it.
“I just basically approached him and said, ‘I’m in design school, here’s my portfolio, would you mind if I was a fly on the wall in design meetings?’” Collins remembers. “I would have done anything to be a part of that process and learn from it.”
Lolinda would turn out to be a hands-on learning experience for Collins. Dissatisfied with his original designer, Paganini let that firm go and brought the project in-house. Collins, Paganini, and Hannah Walbridge, now a project manager at Collins’ design firm, created and built Lolinda themselves. “It was one of the most difficult projects I’ve ever done,” says Paganini. “It was a gigantic box with sheet rock everywhere, so we had to create everything that’s there.”
The final result is striking. Diners enter Lolinda through a darkened hallway that opens into a cavernous, softly lit dining room. “Still to this day when we walk people in there, they get very surprised.” says Paganini. “I think Lolinda is one of [Hannah’s] major accomplishments.”
It was just the beginning of a highly productive relationship for Collins and Paganini. “He kept opening restaurants, and he kept calling me,” says Collins. Her work for the prolific restaurateur includes popular destinations like Delarosa and Belga in the Marina, A Mano in Hayes Valley, Barvale on Divisadero, and Super Duper — Paganini’s fast casual burger business — all over the Bay Area.
“It’s been Incredible exposure for me,” says Hannah of her work with Paganini. “Really, it was the way I was able to start my own company pretty young, and grow it to where we are today.”
As Hannah’s design workload increased, her older sister, Emily Collins, joined her in San Francisco. Together, they founded their hospitality firm, Hannah Collins Design, in 2013. “We always wanted to work together,” says Hannah. In 2018, they rebranded as ROY Hospitality, named after their grandfather’s middle name.
The sisters, who call each other best friends, grew up playing restaurant together in their parents’ real life restaurant, Anchos Southwest Grill and Bar in Riverside. Later, their family moved to Grass Valley, where their mother opened a cafe. Both children gravitated towards restaurants, recalling their early experiences. “There’s an energy and a culture to restaurants that I’m extremely attracted to,” says Hannah. Emily studied hospitality at Cal Poly Pomona, and worked in management at the Hillstone Restaurant Group in Irvine and as a vice president at LGO hospitality in Phoenix.
“I knew I could help [Hannah] with the business part of [the firm],” says Emily, “the accounting, the finance aspects of the business — and also contribute from a restaurant perspective.”
Hannah and ROY still work closely with Paganini. Two more of his Back of the House Restaurant Group projects are on the way. But ROY is far from the group’s exclusive in-house designer. With an all-woman team of eight in San Francisco, the firm has taken on a diverse roster of clients, from first time bar-owners like the team at Baja-inspired Elda, to seasoned pros like Michael Mina, for whom a ROY-designed project is underway. This spring, ROY took on a remodel of landmark Tiburon bar and restaurant Sam’s, a nautical, waterfront design that Hannah says is her current favorite.
“If anyone asks me who to work with, its always Hannah Collins and the ROY team,” says Jen Pelka, owner of ROY-designed Champagne bar the Riddler. That endorsement — Pelka is also a partner at restaurant publicity firm Magnum PR — matters a great deal, especially in a referrals-based business like restaurant design.
When designing a space for a new concept like the Riddler, ROY meets with a business owner like Pelka. “She and her team always show up to meetings early and over-prepared,” Pelka says. They walk the space together, measure it, and talk ideas. In the case of the Riddler, Pelka already had a strong sense of what she wanted: Parisian bistro tables and chairs, a deep green color palate, and Champagne motifs. ROY creates mood boards on Photoshop, InDesign, and Pinterest. Eventually, Hannah and her team draw the space in AutoCAD and SketchUP, three-dimensional design drafting software. ROY also oversees project construction and management, calling themselves a “design-build” firm.
“A lot of other designers want complete creative control, but they’re very much the opposite,” says Pelka. “They start with what I want to do.” After using ROY for the original Riddler in 2017, Pelka tapped them again for a New York City sequel. The Riddler NY opens soon in the West Village.
In the restaurant design world, all work is on public display: It’s free advertising, and good work can beget more work. That’s one reason that ROY stopped designing private spaces like homes, turning only to restaurants and bars. These days, ROY’s commissions have started to snowball. Hannah and Emily don’t typically need to argue the merits of good design to today’s restaurant owners, or go to great lengths to justify their rates, which range from about $5,000 to $80,000 per commission. “Most restaurant owners are looking at the reality of where restaurants sit today, and design has to be a part of it,” says Hannah.
Design drives customers’ choices and shapes their experience: Emily points to ROY-designed restaurant Media Noche, whose colorful tiles tempt customers through the door (often for photos on Instagram, providing further exposure for the business). “[Design] sets the stage to charge what you want for food,” says Emily. “It’s a way to add value beyond food and service.” That’s of particular importance in today’s world of food delivery, Emily argues. “Normally eating a cubano at a counter-service restaurant wouldn’t qualify as feeling like you went out, but in a beautiful space, it makes it worthwhile.”
Good design in so-called third spaces — gathering points outside the home or office — can genuinely inspire people, Hannah says. “Restaurants are a great way for our community and our culture to experience new design. They’re places where we put our phones down and gather together and enjoy each other. Creating a space for people to fully do that is really important.”
By contrast, cold or hollow restaurant spaces can drive customers away. “It triggers even when you’re at home, thinking about where to go — you just don’t really wanna go back [to a bad space]” says Hannah. She avoids using large panels of black — they suck energy, she says — and focuses on rough, raw materials like brick, concrete, and tile.
Another big reason for ROY’s growing popularity with restaurateurs is Emily and Hannah’s comfort with restaurant operations. They know how to discuss clearances and flow, and where to place server stations. They’re fast, scrappy, and stick to the budget.
“I have difficulty working with people who are only creative, and not practical,” says Paganini. “Either the project is going to cost too much, or something else, like you’re going to design something that’s not effective for operation... Hannah is perfect, because she not only understands flow in the front of the house as a server, but she understands the practicality of things.”
Restaurateurs like Paganini and Pelka predict that Hannah and Emily will eventually open their own restaurants. For now, the sisters say they want to keep expanding their design firm, building more restaurants in more cities. But in a sense, they’re already restaurateurs, strongly shaping concepts and taking a personal stake in their success.
“We really try to see ourselves as restaurateurs first, and designers second,” says Emily. When working with Magnolia Brewing Company on a redesign of their Dogpatch brewpub, ROY installed a lounge area with bleachers, a space for customers to relax and order beers and snacks while they wait for a table. “We try to think about how can we generate more revenue. We understand how hard it is for restaurants to make money, and we try to live that truth with them.”
ROY hasn’t yet reached the renown of local designers like Ken Fulk, or mega industry players like AvroKO, groups that often compete for high-profile projects. But they have one big leg up on those teams: They’re sisters.
“We’re extremely honest with each other,” says Emily, “Probably too honest with each other. I think it’s an edge.” A fight goes away quickly, and they continue to draw strength and inspiration from one another. “Getting to see [Hannah] in action, what she does well, and how hard she works, is so rewarding. She’s my little sister, it’s crazy to see her growth. It’s a big deal.”