Spill Out
Pizza Bar
2022
Yeonnam-Dong, Seoul
Restaurant
Built Project
Design/Build & Branding
Spill Out is a compact pizza bar in Yeonnam-dong, Seoul. We were commissioned to design the space and manage the construction. The project converted a small 12-seat cafe by adding a full kitchen, expanded dining area, and a covered patio to create seating for forty-eight guests across interior and exterior spaces. Built on a modest budget, the renovation relies on custom wood construction, stained glass, and warm lighting to establish a distinctly American yet locally grounded character. The design opens directly to the alley, allowing the bar’s activity and light to extend into the street and define its corner presence within the neighborhood. We also created a holistic brand identity that merged the architecture and interior design, logo and branding scheme, and a digital marketing framework.
Originally, the space was used as a themed cafe.
Yeonnam-dong, once a quiet residential area west of Hongdae, has become one of Seoul’s most design-conscious neighborhoods. Its narrow alleys and low-rise homes now house cafés, bars, and studios that preserve the area’s intimate street scale. The mix of locals, creatives, and visitors creates a lively but unpretentious atmosphere, where successful businesses combine individuality, approachability, and strong visual identity within the tight urban fabric.
The guiding image for Spill Out was “a 1990s Pizza Hut for the Yeonnam cocktail crowd.” The intention was to reinterpret the casual familiarity of the American owners’ hometown pizza parlors within Seoul’s compact urban grain. The name Spill Out refers both to the physical layout — a sequence of open thresholds between interior, patio, and street — and to the desired social behavior of patrons gathering and extending into public space.
The renovation involved reusing the existing structure while adding four timber-built components: a continuous bar, a wood-frame patio enclosure, a new façade, and a rear, outdoor kitchen extension. Together, they define the project’s spatial and material identity.
A 15㎡ open kitchen faces a 20㎡ dining room, both aligned along a single service spine, the custom bar. The dining room opens to a 30㎡ covered patio through folding glass doors, extending the usable floor area and maintaining continuity.
All primary surfaces were constructed from timber: dark-stained plywood pine, where cost savings would be concealed from customers; full-grain acacia, finished in a warm stain and lacquer for the bar and table tops; and distressed paneling across the bar face, façade, and walls, for a rustic American nuance. Stained glass panels, commissioned art, and vintage framed photos introduce color and reflection.
Layered lighting combines warm pendants, concealed LED strips, and a neon sign that marks the corner. The light temperature remains consistent across interior and exterior, producing a continuous evening tone along the alley.
We were also commissioned to complete a full branding suite including logo, color schema, and unique design elements used for marketing. The visual identity was developed in parallel with the architectural design to ensure consistency between space, graphics, and communication. The logo, signage, and printed materials share a distinct color palette, and the brand language extends across menus, posters, and digital media.
The completed space accommodates twenty-four guests indoors and twenty-four outdoors. The bar’s activities extend outward across the patio, forming an intermediate zone between restaurant and street. The project was completed within budget, relying on direct fabrication and adaptive reuse rather than new construction. Its openness and warmth have attracted a mixed local and international community and embedded the bar as part of the neighborhood’s evening rhythm. It has since been featured on SBS, in The Korea Times, and The Hyundai Department Store.