These days, it’s not so silent in the Providence Public Library.
And PPL isn’t unique in that regard – while libraries haven’t completely abandoned quiet spaces, modern institutions have largely shed their reputations as places dedicated solely to hushed study, and now offer a range of community services.
Still, it’s not so commonplace to go to the library for a chef-prepared meal or cocktails at a full-service bar.
But that’s exactly what PPL will house in a roughly 3,600-square-foot space off Washington Street – the Culinary Hub of Providence, or CHOP, a restaurant and bar that doubles as a training center for culinary students at the Genesis Center, a Providence-based nonprofit providing adult education and career development resources. If all goes as planned with the finishing touches, the space will open to the public this spring.
While student-staffed restaurants have long had a place in culinary education, “it is kind of a new model, and it is very unusual to have this type of thing in a library,” Shannon Carroll, CEO and president of the Genesis Center, says of the upcoming cafe.
Accordingly, reworking the space into a dining establishment required innovative thinking and a collaborative effort between experienced workforce, culinary and design leaders in the Ocean State.
The 125-seat restaurant features a bar, cafe, dining room and learning lab kitchen, says Joshua Riazi, chief operating officer and chef at CHOP and culinary director at the Genesis Center. The planned menu will feature a range of dishes drawn from students’ cultural backgrounds.
“The restaurant really exists for two purposes,” Riazi said. “One is to educate our students who come through a culinary training program, and to teach them how a functioning business works so they can gain more layers of training. ... Doing that in the real world, there’s really no substitute.”
But to achieve this environment, the Genesis Center, Providence interior designer Kyla Coburn, KITE Architects Inc. and Case Construction Co. had to start from scratch with a barren space that had never hosted kitchen facilities.
Some of those kitchen staples, such as a hooded oven, weren’t possible to install in the library’s framework, Riazi says. And in a building filled with books, open flames pose a particular risk, Carroll says.
“It’s been a challenge, but we’re getting there,” Carroll said. “It’s not as simple as taking an empty space, putting a stove in there and having a restaurant.”
But the Genesis Center’s construction and design partners worked out alternatives such as induction ovens, she says, so that the absence of some traditional equipment won’t be apparent.
Likewise, while the Providence Public Library hosts its share of lively initiatives, restaurants and bars can be loud even for non-library neighbors.
The team behind CHOP had to integrate some noise mitigation panels into the space to account for sound bleed, Riazi says. But the space also came with some built-in features such as brick and concrete surfaces, which deaden noise better than drywall.
To cultivate an inviting space that reflects the unique location, the Genesis Center enlisted Coburn, the principal of Kyla Coburn Designs LLC, a Warwick-based design firm well known for its work in restaurants such as Café Nuovo and the former Grange in Providence, as well as The Aviary.
In all of her projects, Coburn works with clients beyond aesthetics, guiding design decisions that will work in the interest of business.
With “all projects that we do as an interior design team, we do financial workshops,” Coburn said. “We don’t just start a project where someone says, ‘My favorite color is green, I want to serve burgers, here’s the money.’ ”
Instead, Coburn and her team gather the business or organization’s decision-makers to gauge a “design consensus,” then work to make that vision functional.
The culinary hub will cost an estimated $1.5 million by the time it’s complete, Carroll says, up from original expectations of around $750,000 due to inflation. Various nonprofits, private businesses and state appropriations have contributed to the center, including the Champlin Foundation, Citizens Bank and the Jacques Pépin Foundation.
And even for seasoned professionals, spaces such as PPL require extra care. While CHOP appealed to Coburn for its location in a historic building, as well as the community-driven mission it represents, she also says that these sites come with their own challenges from a design perspective, such as building regulations and preservation needs.
“But it’s worth it in the end,” Coburn said of these hurdles. “You get the compound layers and the good energy that went into the space beforehand. So you walk into that building and you feel something before you’ve even tasted the food.
“Then, the music is a layer,” she said. “The interior design is a layer. The people sitting in the space are a layer. ... The mission [of CHOP] is a huge layer, so the library location is contributing.”
