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Houston, TX
Livingston, NJ |
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Description: |
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After starting with two strong locations in NYC and New Jersey, The Strip House decided to take its spin on steakhouses to Houston. Already familiar with Essential Communications following a successful collaboration in the Garden State, Strip House owners & operators The Glazier Group called on the innovative A/V firm to help them make a big impression in Texas.
"The entire A/V concept of The Strip House has evolved," observes David Schwartz, President of Essential Communications. "The Houston restaurant has fairly detailed video and audio components. We understand that there are two schools of restaurant-goers: diners that want to be left alone, and diners that want some of the experience that they have in their own homes to follow them when they go out. People are frequently surrounded by moving images and sounds at home, and they feel comfortable in that environment, savvy restaurateurs are using modern A/V techniques to transport people into the fantasy."
The Essential Communications team used creative solutions to expand on The Strip House tongue-in-cheek risqué atmosphere. "One of the hallmarks of their restaurants is old, framed pictures of movies stars and entertainers," Schwartz says. "Rather than using stills again, we invoked that past time period by creating 'shadow box' video shows that play out on twelve 17" LCD screens, plus an NEC projector and 80" projection screen in the restaurant's lounge area. We executive-produced all original video content, which was shot by C-TRL Labs (NYC): The effect is to bring an active, third dimension of movement that attracts people's attention."
When it came to music programming, Essential Communications filled the restaurant's multiple zones with the flexible audio capabilities of MuMa, which stores thousands of music selections and organizes them into easily manageable playlists. MuMa normalizes the files, making all the song the same volume, and gives the ability to play different playlists at different times of day to accommodate different meal services throughout the day.
"When they had one restaurant in Manhattan, they could easily control what was being played because they were close to the system," says Schwartz. "But I let them know that as they expand, it won't be as easy as saying to the bartender, 'Here, play these ten CDs.'
"To have consistency and branding in the atmosphere that says, 'This is Strip House', we needed a comprehensive music solution. You can have the same MuMa program playing in multiple locations, using all the scheduling features that MuMa provides to ensure that the right music is playing at the right time."
It's all part of a night out that makes The Strip House much more than just a steak dinner. "Dining is a fantasy," Schwartz says. "If we can add another dimension to that fantasy by running old reels of video that evoke another time, then the diners really feel like they were there and they leave with a memorable experience."
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