Almost 5 months after I had completed the rooftop above Ornithology Jazz Club, in September 2023, the business had been doing so well they decided to buy the business next door and open a sister club called Cafe Ornithology.  Mitchell Borden and Rie-Yamaguchi Borden asked me again to be their architect but this time on a much bigger scale, to build their next jazz club.  Mitchell Borden is a jazz legend having been the creator of Smalls Jazz Club, Mezzarow, and Fatcat, three west village jazz clubs that were the epicenter of the jazz renaissance in the 90s in New York City. Being apart of this long line of infamous jazz clubs has been the biggest honor of my lifetime and will hold this project close to my heart forever.

We had bought a day time cafe next door with a kitchen already built in and the plan was to make the new space a kissa in the daytime and club with dining at night.  A kissa is a Japanese vinyl cafe, so we wanted the space to be brighter and function for the daytime. We did five main custom builds: record and book shelving; repurposed wooden tables for dining; a new bar for espresso and wine; replacing the existing stage with a built in bench so the stage could be open on the space; and replacing tiles and glass with plywood paneling to help with the acoustics.  In a total of four months, the space was designed, demoed, and rebuilt to be the current Cafe Ornithology.