In downtown Fort Collins, there are dozens of great restaurants to choose from. Every one of them is unique in their own right but very few offer something more above and beyond just food. Now, not every one of them can be Austin’s – a restaurant whose goal it seems is to make it’s patrons feel like their eating some of the best cuisine in town. Or how about Rasta Pasta? At first glance their food looks nothing more than anything I ever prepared for myself in those early post-college years. But then – there’s the experience. Everything from the Bob Marley mural that greats you when you walk in the door, reggae music, to the easy-going vibe from their waitstaff. It’s like a mini-vacation and the food is much better than anything I’ve ever made.

If indeed we were all about saving money I suspect that McDonald’s and Burger King would be flooded with customers everyday all day. But restaurants like Austin’s, Rasta Pasta and CooperSmith’s sell an experience. A vision to be a part of something larger than just food. These establishments are doing very well – doing what they do best. Selling an experience – because it still matters to all of us.

These restaurants, much like Red Rocket – do more than simply provide a product or service but amplify the experience our customers have. Design is often confused with what looks good – but it’s so much more than that. Great design is about how it works, it’s your experience. Remember back to that time you waited a little too long to be seated at your favorite restaurant? Maybe the staff was having a bad day? Although the food was outstanding, the experience was not. It’s similar in design too. We design with so much more in mind that the aesthetics – it’s about the experience. At the very core of that is the belief that everything that we do revolves around delivering content. And much like the restaurant business – the food (content) can be great but if the user-experience is bad, your customers will never get the message.

Whenever I’m at CooperSmith’s, everything about my experience delivers content with a similar message – a British-inspired menu with an American twist. And I can’t go anywhere else in Fort Collins to get that  – which is probably why Coops is such an iconic landmark. We think that Red Rocket offers the same unique service that delivers a great experience with a singular message. It’s all about the positive results.