Between them chefs Jody Williams and Rita Sodi own five restaurants, all within blocks of each other in NYC’s West Village. The couple’s interests extend beyond the culinary—in addition to getting every bite just right (their trattoria Via Carota is the Remodelista go-to for celebrations of every sort), they create immersive experiences in which design plays a key role. Everything is considered in a Rita and Jody establishment down to the rolling trash bins hidden behind the bar and the length of the sleeves on the waitstaff’s jackets.
Their latest venture, The Commerce Inn, on a landmark Greenwich Village block across from the Cherry Lane Theatre, is a bar and restaurant that takes inspiration from Shaker design and early American taverns. To create what they envisioned, the two chefs spent years immersing themselves in early American cookery and Shaker ways (“they were impressively egalitarian and sustainability minded,” says Jody). They then recruited a large creative team, including architect and Shaker aficionado Ben Bischoff of Made; architect Richard Lewis, who designed Via Carota; and designer/builder Michael Smart of Urban Aesthetics, to consider every inch.
Read the full article in Remodelista here.
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Sharon Duane Koomler is a Shaker scholar and traditional letterpress printer living in upstate New York. She has academic degrees in American Folklore from Indiana University and Western Kentucky University. Sharon has worked at Shaker Museums from Kentucky to New Hampshire as an educator, curator, consultant, and director. She has written and published on Shaker material culture and spirituality, and lectured widely on Shaker art, life, and belief. Sharon has a particular interest in the under-researched social aspects of Shaker life and ways in which Shakers practiced inclusion and intentionality.