El Ajicito Restaurant Expansion

Restaurant projects have to do more than look finished. The dining room has to feel welcoming, the kitchen has to work under pressure, staff need clear paths through the space, and the drawings need to make sense to the Building Department, Health Department, consultants, and contractors.

For El Ajicito Restaurant II in Hempstead, Baca Williamson Architects helped expand and rework an existing restaurant space into a more coordinated commercial layout. The project included interior alteration work, restaurant planning, including fire-rated assemblies, rated penetrations and firestopping, hood and suppression-system coordination, gas/plumbing/electrical routing, inspections, and pressure-test documentation where required, along with kitchen equipment coordination, accessibility review, MEP coordination, and selective structural work where existing walls and openings had to be addressed.

The Challenge

The restaurant needed a layout that could support both the public dining experience and the back-of-house operation. Seating, circulation, restrooms, kitchen equipment, storage, utilities, exhaust, egress, and agency review all had to be coordinated as one project.

The existing building also required careful field coordination. Selective demolition, new openings, and structural review were part of the process, along with coordination for mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and roof-related equipment.

BAWI's Approach

BAWI prepared the architectural drawings for the commercial interior alteration and restaurant expansion, including demolition plans, construction plans, reflected ceiling plans, finish information, restroom and accessibility coordination, door and hardware information, and kitchen equipment planning.

The layout was developed around how the restaurant would actually operate: how customers enter and move through the dining area, how staff move between the kitchen and dining room, how the commercial kitchen equipment is arranged, and how the space meets code and agency requirements.

The project also required coordination beyond the visible interior work. BAWI coordinated with engineering drawings, structural requirements, MEP systems, Health Department review, and Building Department filing requirements for the Village of Hempstead.

The Result

The completed work gives El Ajicito a more capable restaurant layout: a refreshed dining environment, a more deliberate kitchen and service arrangement, and a coordinated commercial alteration package that supported the expansion of the existing restaurant.

It is the kind of project where the architectural value is partly visible in the finished space and partly hidden in the coordination behind it: the walls that were opened, the equipment that fits, the circulation that works, and the drawings that help a commercial project move through review.