Kris Keith of Spacecraft: 'I Will Crush You'

"Unlike most designers, I actually know the inspectors personally. I have their cellphone [numbers]," he says. "When I design, it's already to code."

"No one wants to eat and look at a toilet."

PHOTO BY LUCINDA WEDGE

Keith: "Don't be a place in Echo Park, be the place in Echo Park."

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• Kris Keith
• Kristofer Keith
• Bob Lynn
• Food and Cooking
• Eating Out

Placing a bathroom is a delicate art. A fluorescent flash of the porcelain goddess should never invade the space where diners sit, but putting lavatories near the entrance, beside the kitchen or in a corner doesn't always work. Keith cites the $8 million Hollywood steak house BOA as the worst offender: The only exit from the kitchen leads to a blind left turn into the restroom hallway. "Everyone's constantly screaming to let the person around the corner know that there's somebody [coming], and even then you see customers knocking food on the ground," he says. "It's ridiculous."

Space planning is Keith's No. 1 priority. He rails against so-called 2-D designers who merely "stick things on walls" or place rooms by drawing "boxes in corners" on the blueprints. The kitchen should have multiple entrances and exits, one of which leads to the back of the bar. To get tipsy clubgoers to find each other attractive, use walls and curtains to create a little mystery about who or what waits around the corner.

"If it's gonna be a pizzeria, you might make the chairs a little less comfortable, so [customers] don't sit around and loiter," he adds.

"The design world is a bunch of lemmings. Yes, I get bored."

Kris Keith doesn't jump on the bandwagon; the bandwagon jumps on him. His current pet peeves include a bevy of five-minutes-ago trends: cupcakes, frozen yogurt, flocked-brocade wallpaper, Edison bulbs, exposed brick and, above all, reclaimed wood — wood that has been used before or at least appears to be recycled. In 2004, Keith used wood from old barns as flooring at the now-defunct Ortolan; within two years that trend took off.

Nothing makes Keith crazier than designers who produce the same old look. "If you go into a Chinese restaurant, it doesn't have to be Buddhas sitting around, but it shouldn't be ultra-clean and modern like a museum," he says walking around Naya. He comes to a room with bindi-esque, red diamond tiles set into the side of a bar and sighs. "You go to 4100 Bar [down the street], and it's just paint and some fabric. It's just kind of thrown together," he says. "I just wanted to create a place around here that wasn't, like, a dive."