ChowNow Headquarters

Client: Eric Owen Moss Architects, Architect of RecordIsabel Lozowski and Mary Moen, Tangram Interiors, Furniture Dealer

As a popular online ordering platform, ChowNow dedicates itself to ensuring that local restaurants thrive. When it came time to craft the new headquarters for their workforce, they turned to Rapt Studio to design a community-centered space that felt more like a restaurant than an office. 

At the heart of their new 21,000-square-foot location in Culver City now sits a test kitchen, brimming with activity. With tile backsplashes and butcher-block countertops, it entices staff to cook weekday lunches, circle around for potlucks, and enjoy takeout when restaurant partners cater for the office. Those partners are now invited to lead classes and host interactive demonstrations.

The kitchen features colors pulled from spice cabinets — yellow mustard, red paprika, and dusty rose. Doing double-duty as a site for content creation, it’s where partners can capture photos and videos to market themselves. 

Absorbing the kitchen’s buzz are banquettes where staff can chat and work. They buffer sound and provide a visual barrier to the sit-stand workstations lined by conference rooms just beyond, where staff can focus in quiet. 

Anchoring the opposite side of the office is a café where professional baristas lead pop-up classes ranging from latte art to specialty cocktails. In visual contrast to the warm hues in the kitchen, café accent colors veer cooler, inspired by herbs like sage, mint, rosemary and basil. 

Linking the kitchen and café is a custom 16-foot-long chef’s table. Here, company employees convene for meals, in the way that restaurant teams share “family meals” before service. Glass garage doors peel upward to connect to a shaded outdoor patio, where staff can eat on sunny days and stay to work a while. 

“It’s part office, part community hub, part event space,” says ChowNow CEO Chris Webb of the new HQ.