From Bestia and Bavel downtown to the reborn Helms Bakery in Culver City, Echo Park-based interior architecture firm Studio Unltd is behind some of Los Angeles’ most coveted eateries.
The company was founded in 2009 by Greg Bleier, originally as an interior design firm, and eventually grew to encompass architecture and lighting configuration. Bleier grew up in New York and said it was his experiences working in the back of restaurants that made him realize he wanted to be at the forefront of design.
“It was intriguing to me,” Bleier recalled. “It made me think that there was something beyond just going to a place to eat because the food is good or whatnot, that there’s more to it that you can’t really put your finger on.”
This fascination became a specialization, and it wasn’t long before Studio Unltd compiled a roster of chef clients and notable restaurants underway – including Bestia, The Rose Venice, Otium downtown and Messhall Kitchen in Los Feliz.
“That process and being part of that restaurant group (Sprout Los Angeles), really secured our position early on in this industry which I was pleased with,” Bleier said. “That started this early run of working on some of these early iconic projects that were part of this chef renaissance here in the early 2010s that started I think to put Los Angeles on the map really as a culinary destination.”
Branching out
But as the firm grew, so did its scope of work – spurred mainly by changing habits on the consumer end that deeply challenged the restaurant business.
“We’re not dull to the reality that we have to stay somewhat nimble and unlimited in some regards, just because the food and beverage space is difficult,” Bleier said. “It’s difficult particularly in Los Angeles right now. We’ve witnessed, since Covid but it seems to have ramped up over the last two years, such a series of closures.”
Last year, Bleier watched as two beloved restaurants his firm designed – Rose and Otium – closed their doors infinitely due to financial hardship.
“For the longest time, I think we went like eight years and none of our major restaurants closed,” he said. “And then now to have (two) major restaurants go offline like that has been unsettling … People are eating differently. It seems like the successful places aren’t the Bestias of the world (anymore). There’s a gamble. There’s a lot of risk around that. Fast casual is kind of king at the moment.”
Because of this, Studio Unltd has branched out of its core business of designing upscale dine-in only concepts to include fast-casual restaurants, as well as other forms of hospitality concepts – including hotel work, event spaces, clubhouses and retail.
One of its most recent projects is PleasureMed, a Cuban-inspired apothecary cannabis dispensary in West Hollywood, which opened in October 2023.
“We’ll always be involved in dining and restaurants, but it’s fun getting our hands on these other spaces that the public enjoys and seeing how we can transform those as well,” Terri Robison, principal designer at Studio Unltd, added, who joined the firm in 2013.
Current roster
The company’s latest undertaking is Helms Bakery, an adaptive reuse project of an original 1931 bakery in Culver City into a multi-concept space for prominent chef Sang Yoon. Helms Bakery reopened in November and Studio Unltd is currently in the process of designing the restaurant portion of the project, called Dinette, set to open soon.
“It’s an honor to be a part of that project because of the legacy here,” Bleier said. “Most of us were not around when it was thriving and so it’s a cool, rare opportunity to get a legacy brand like that and be a steward in its rebirth.”
Beyond Helms, Studio Unltd has three active restaurant projects in Los Angeles – Vaca, a Spanish tapas restaurant downtown; Cumulus, another Spanish restaurant but in Culver City for Acme Hospitality; and an unnamed chef-driven Italian eatery in Santa Monica.
The firm has also geographically expanded, now pursuing designs worldwide. Studio Unltd has projects in New York, Paris, Seattle, Chicago, San Diego, Phoenix and Hawaii, among other places, and is working to bolster its hospitality line of work.
One project Bleier and Robison are particularly excited about is the remodel of the Honda Center in Anaheim, of which Studio Unltd has been tasked to redesign the hospitality elements within the arena, including the corporate suites and various club spaces, as well as a new restaurant, set to be completed in phases prior to the Olympics.
“It’s been a steady diet of projects,” Bleier said. “Each project gives you different opportunities to express (spaces) differently.”
