Viridian is the fulfillment of Co-Owner and Bar Director William Tsui’s six-year dream of ownership. Together with his team of Co-Owners Raymond Gee and Jeremy Chiu and General Manager Alison Kwan, the bar officially opened in Uptown Oakland, California in February.
The three co-owners all hail from Oakland, so building a bar in the community was especially meaningful to them.
“Even in the past five years, that whole [Uptown Oakland] area has been redeveloped,” says Tsui. “Now there’s a lot of new and exciting things there, and we’re just very happy to be able to be a part of that and provide this concept that Oakland has never seen before.”
Viridian aims to provide outstanding hospitality in a relaxed atmosphere. “We want to have the same level of hospitality as fine dining but in a fun and unpretentious atmosphere,” says Tsui.
The bar’s design derives inspiration from a variety of places, including Hong Kong, ’90s aesthetic (neon, the Miami Vice-esque script of the bar’s logo, and graphic elements borrowed from R&B record covers), and the ’90s films of Director Wong Kar-wai, which are characterized by atmospheric music and vivid cinematography with bold, saturated colors.
In fact, the name Viridian comes from an element of one of Kar-Wai’s films. “Originally, we wanted to name it Days of Being Wild after the Wong Kar-wai movie, but that’s a very long name for a bar, especially when someone’s been drinking,” jokes Tsui.
After rewatching the movie, they noticed the title screen at the start of the film features a lush, green-blue background—the color known as viridian. In addition, Viridian also has a connection to the game Pokémon, which thrilled the co-owners who are big Pokémon fans and even considered a Pokémon theme for the bar. “Viridian also refers to the second city in Pokémon from the first game, so it’s like we’re leaving our town and starting our adventure,” explains Tsui.
Finally, viridian is also a nod to the green-blue Earth and the bar’s sustainability efforts. “Coming from a background in fine dining, it was shocking the amount of waste that goes out of the kitchen,” says Tsui.
In an effort to reduce their footprint, the bar uses local produce, shares ingredients between the bar and the kitchen to reduce waste, and has even created a faux lime mix called “not lime” to cut down on its use of limes.
The bar was designed by husband-and-wife team Anna Lee and Brandon Jew of Soon and Soon Studio, who proposed three design ideas, including a neon-saturated concept the team ultimately chose.
San Francisco-based artist Laura Stevenson of Rite Guy Design was brought in to create the neon displays. She’s studied both Hong Kong neon and the neon of Oakland, so she was a perfect fit for the project. She created three neon sculptures that fill up the space: one behind the bar, a chandelier in the foyer, and a six-piece installation above the lounge area.
According to a press release, “Stevenson’s inspiration evolved from imagining what the view might look like from high up in a Hong Kong tower building, overlooking the tremendously influential neon landscape of one of the world’s greatest cities. The series of sculptures for Viridian represents that abstract vision: The piece at the center of the bar represents a ‘window’ in that tower room, which has been opened to invite colorful threads of electric city energy to drift in and illuminate the interior.”
All of the neon lighting succeeds in creating the atmosphere Viridian was hoping to establish. “It just fills the space up with such a mood, and it’s very Wong Kar-wai-esque, it has those oversaturated colors,” says Tsui. “The beautiful thing about neon is that it can emit so much light, but you can still look directly at it, and it doesn’t hurt your eyes.”
The mood is further set with a variety of playlists, including acoustic and pop rock sounds, hip-hop and R&B from all eras, electronic, jazz, and more.
In addition to the neon installations, the bar includes black and yellow tiling from Heath Ceramics, lighting running underneath the length of the bar top and into the foyer area, glossy black varnished back bar shelving, and handmade acrylic felt sconces above each floating table.
Prior to COVID-19 spacing restrictions, the bar sat 70, with 16 seats at the bar, 10 seats in the lounge, and 10 additional seats at the bar-height, wall mounted semi-circle tables.
Speaking of COVID-19, Tsui says the pandemic has deeply affected the bar that was only open a few weeks before being forced to close. “COVID-19 has reduced our business by 80%,” says Tsui. “Shelter-in-place ordinances as well as low consumer confidence have really dealt a blow to our bar.”
In light of the pandemic, the bar pivoted its business model to Viridian Market, which offers snacks, wine, and bottled cocktails to-go as well as cookie dough and steam-your-own bao for those stuck at home looking for an activity.
Viridian’s normal mode of operation was to prep for a week out each morning so that they could focus on guest service each night. Because of this model, the bar was positioned especially well to pivot into a to-go format. “Our cocktails, for the most part, were already shelf stable and ready to be bottled into a smaller format. The challenge with to-go has always been how well things keep when they travel,” says Tsui. “Being no longer able to plate or present a dish or a cocktail in person, once you send it out in a to-go format, it is out of your control. We mitigate this through our packaging—making things easy to read but still staying true to our brand. During these times, we have added new cocktails to our menu every week as we continue to look for ways to express hospitality to our guests.”
Viridian offers a variety of seasonal and technique-driven craft cocktails in its bar program created by Tsui and Kwan. To aid its sustainability efforts, the bar program highlights fresh, local ingredients in its produce-driven cocktails, and it often mixes drinks with spirit brands rooted in agriculture. “These producers share such a close tie with the land that they’re producing on, and it really shows in the bottle,” says Tsui.
The bar doesn’t do frequent or large menu rotations. Instead, they focus on swapping out a cocktail once the ingredients go out of season. For guests dining in, presentation is also big.
“You eat first with your eyes, so we always try to incorporate something that’s a little surprising,” says Tsui, who uses the bar’s Golden Triangle cocktail as an example. The cocktail includes yellow beets, gin, Califonia poppy, bitter wine—and a little bit of pearl dust that makes the cocktail shimmer.
Viridian’s savory Tomato Beef cocktail is a popular offering, and it includes tequila, tomato water, foraged pink peppercorns, basil eau de vie, and the bar’s “not lime” mix. The cocktail is also available in a bottled format for takeout.
Viridian also offers an eclectic wine list curated by Master Sommelier Andrey Ivanov, which is designed to mirror Viridian’s ethos of being environmentally conscious, diverse, and approachable. Most of the wines are sourced from small producers who look to minimize the long-term effects of farming on their ecosystems.
In an effort to be a minimum-waste establishment, the bar program shares many ingredients with its food menu, which is composed of desserts, dim sum style sweets, and savory items inspired by the Asian-American experience and presented by Executive Chef Amanda Hoang.
“We work very closely with Chef Amanda to use all the products in-house,” explains Tsui. “So pairing cocktails with desserts is a lot easier since they share a lot of the same ingredients. Things that she uses that are then leftover as byproducts we in turn as a bar program can use, and vice versa.”
The dessert menu includes options like Thai Tea Tiramisu and Black Sesame Chocolate Cake. For its to-go menu, Viridian offers desserts that travel easily, like a variety of cookies: Black Sesame Dumpling Cookie, Chewy Flourless Chocolate Pistachio Cookie, and Strawberry Shortbread Cookie, in addition to a variety of bake-your-own cookie dough selections. Pints of ice cream with toppings are also available for takeout.
“We also wanted to include a few savory bites for people who have that preference,” explains Hoang. Popular items include Rum Po Tat (egg custard tart, spiced rum, cinnamon, and lemon zest) and Cha Siu Bao (BBQ pork in steamed milk bun), which is also available in a steam-your-own takeout option.
“Since we share a lot of ingredients, there’s a lot of natural pairings that happen on the menu [between the bar and food program],” says Tsui. “And down the line, more and more of that will start to show as we get up and running and get our systems down for reusing each other’s waste.”