The first of a new concept for the UK late-night bar market, Bar and Beyond’s ethos offers a split level experience with food served at the bar from early evening and then, after dark ‘going beyond’, is a high-quality club experience with state-of-the-art sound systems and some of the best DJs and live acts around.

The design of Bar & Beyond represents a new direction for Deltic Leisure Group. Aidan Keane, Owner of Keane Brands, describes the overall look as “an anarchic house party – part garage, part gallery space”. Obsessed with ‘going out’ since he was very young, and the youngest of eight children, Aidan’s two sisters’ habits of ‘going out’ clearly left a mark on him and he decided to open up Keane Brands, an interior design consultancy focusing on innovative and quirky designs for the hospitality industry. As a former DJ and club promoter, Aidan isn’t your regular-route designer. His design work lives across five continents for clients as diverse as Virgin, Emirates, Intercontinental Hotels, Jack Daniels, Nandos, Costa and Pret.

Talking about Bar & Beyond’s project, Aidan commented: “Bar & Beyond is an odd animal. It has the edgy design details of the coolest, hip bars, but with an easy-going informality of an old pub. It’s a great mix; Bar & Beyond’s customers get to feel they’re in a cool place which treats them in a very laid-back, easy way.”

Deltic Leisure Group approached Aidan to reinvent some tired town centre bars, as he explains: “We were approached by Deltic Leisure to reinvent a part of their estate that was, to put it bluntly, awful – out of date; miserable; uninvested and rancid.

“Deltic gave us carte blanche to change and reinvent the space and that’s precisely what we have done. Bar & Beyond genuinely has the perfect mix; design credibility and a local approachability, it doesn’t feel as if it’s owned by a big PLC; it feels personal.”

Going ‘beyond’

The design ethic was simple for Aidan and his team – they utilised whatever the site had to offer and then took it ‘beyond’. Aidan explains further: “We try and use whatever we can from the bar’s previous life and if that includes some timber, then great. If it doesn’t, we’ll use a range of other flooring options – including concrete, tile or reclaimed wood.

“It’s this reason that each Bar & Beyond scheme feels different,” explains Aidan. “That said, there are a few common design touches that are shared across all of Bar & Beyond’s schemes, such as our red hanging horse.”

The red hanging horse, featured in the entrance of Bar & Beyond’s Sheffield establishment, came about after a discussion Aidan and his team had in the studio about a feature that would create big visual interest – an instant ‘instagrammable’ icon.

“One person suggested we drop in a life-size horse – just to keep it random! The next person said we should have it painted in a ‘mad colour’, to stop it looking like a horse and ‘top it off’, and another person said we should hang it upside down – it all made perfect sense!

“We wanted to create a space that had a sort of ‘post-apocalyptic edge’, that looked like the crowd had broken in and started a party – a nod to warehouse parties.”

Bar & Beyond’s ground floor bar servery construction was existing and Aidan and his team kept the structure and worked with it, cladding the front with rusty panels, adding uplit steel rebars to the back and graffiti to the bulkhead, giving it more character and texture.

The entrance area of the bar also includes a light-changing concept to create an enticing warmth on the bar’s first impression. Exposed, hanging LED bulbs feature within the bar-front window, offering a venue of warm ambience to passers-by.

Downstairs, pendants hang over the bar with a red sulphur finish, aged with character. While most other walls are subtly highlighted with surface-mounted spotlights. The back bars have counter-illuminated stepped displays to show off the wide range of products on offer, the coolers below are standard for the dispense of bottled beers and the like. Uplit rebars have graffiti champagne bottles mounted on them. Meanwhile, on the first floor, the headlight framework on the graffiti wall adds a focus, offering the impression as if the bits have been collected and pieced together in an ‘unmanufactured’ way.

The nature of the design of Bar & Beyond has also meant that the interiors team were able to get creative in terms of ‘upcycling’ and ‘recycling’. Old plaster boards and cable reels have become a design feature and reusing as many old materials as possible has now become a stable of future design plans. Some furnishings are reused and upcycled, such as the cinema seats for example, others are picked to complement the overall scheme and design direction. All furnishings have come from a range of suppliers, but all are different and all picked to add a quirk or fascination.

Raw, mild steel combines with rusted panels, brick, concrete and unfinished timbers, accompanied by paint-dripping walls and graffiti messaging subtly referencing Author, John Steinbeck.

Giving spaces energy

Graffiti features heavily throughout Bar & Beyond’s Sheffield establishment. “Graffiti adds edge and ‘visual candy’ to an enclosed space,” enthuses Aidan. “It gives that space huge energy and it was one of the first design elements we put into the mix. Glen Anderson, the Graffiti Artist, is a real talent that we have known for years. He used to come to our studio on his skateboard to do his work.”

A skull graffiti ‘wall tattoo’ features on Bar and Beyond’s feature wall which was developed as a symbol of ‘rebellion’; a unifying image that brings all Bar & Beyonds together.

Aidan’s refurbished design for Bar & Beyond’s Sheffield home has resulted in an honest, urban, unmanufactured interior.

“Bar & Beyond is purposely designed to give a mainstream customer some edge and coolness. Enough quirks and humour to relax everyone and enough designer features to flood the social networks with images. Bar & Beyond has attitude and a ‘swagger.’ It’s not tied down by corporates and genuinely feels more independent every time one opens.”

Bar & Beyond was originally designed as a bar venue for 20-25-year-olds and that, to a degree, is its core market. “What is great to see is how this appeal has broadened now, with Bar & Beyond establishments across the UK attracting huge groups of females of all ages, all loving that perfect mix of style and approachability. Bar & Beyond is a hugely popular bar and club space. Wherever we drop one, the locals seem to love it,” concluded Aidan.