Erzsébet Alehouse is located in Noszlopy Gáspár street in Kaposvár. The street was originally named after the Hungarian queen assassinated in 1898, Erzsébet (Hungarian translation of Elizabeth). Once the iconic Erzsébet Restaurant occupied the property.
When designing the place the owners and I both considered tradition very important and have therefore decided to give the new alehouse the former name of the property. For the same reasons, when constructing the visual identity, we took the queen’s initial as a starting point and refer to the queen, her husband, Franz Joseph, furthermore, we generally use German, their native language.
The style of the place combines those of a classic alehouse and an industrial brewery. It deliberately does not break with the past and goes back to the traditions in a number of its elements while gives the genuine spirit of contemporary pubs and bars.
The alehouse has three levels. Beside the ground floor and the loft, in the basement we constructed a speakeasy bar called Vitrin. This a humorous play on words: the concept of speakeasy bar derives from the age of prohibition – ’vitrin’ was not just the way the contemporary slang called little places which sold alcohol illegally but it is also the Hungarian equivalent of display cabinet. The interior of the bar is visible from the ground floor through several windows built in the floor of the latter.
The letters on the wall are taken from the facade of a professional laundry. From the letters found in the cellar of the owners we tried to structure sensible sentences in connection with the alehouse.
The alehouse also has own private label brands. We designed the packaging of each products as conceptionally as the interior decoration and the corporate identity. Beside their custom labelled craft beers, their coffee products are also purchasable at the bar.
