After nearly 30 years of serving up delicious Tex-Mex and margaritas with a Colorado twist, the Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant in Boulder decided it was time to refresh their look. The Rio Grande is a staple of Boulder's downtown scene, and they reached out to Color Cord Company for a little help redesigning their restaurant lighting aesthetic.

We were thrilled to collaborate with Shari Cahill of PlaSe Design and help outfit the Rio Grande restaurant space with the gorgeous custom commercial restaurant lighting you see there today. Learn more about their collaboration with our team when you check out our blog today!

Who Was In On the Project?

Our group collaboration included several talented designers and restaurant lighting specialists. Top of the list was PlaSe Design and Nate Sedar from Sedar Custom Metalworks.

At Color Cord Company, we love participating in artist collaborations, so this was a chance we couldn’t pass up!

What We Did for Boulder’s Rio Grande Restaurant

With the help of Nate and Shari, a unique set of gorgeous geometric fixtures were born. Using unfinished metal for the geometric frame along with raw brass lighting components, our fixtures for restaurant lighting created the perfect blend of industrial and modern styles.

An Extra Special Touch

At Color Cord Company, we deliver the best quality lighting and design — no matter what the project! The Rio Grande is no different, and we took their restaurant lighting to a whole new level with an extra special touch.

We helped Shari retrofit vintage brass collars from a historic Denver hotel and applied them to a few of our new branch chandeliers. With the collars, our chandeliers still provide a similar industrial look for this commercial restaurant lighting style, but with a little bit of added historic charm.

To round out the design, we used our lighting customizer to create custom multiport fixtures to incorporate and match the space’s existing colors. We ultimately landed on Avocado and Mod Orange Mini Tweed for our cord color, as they were the best accents to the current color story. Anyone can customize their cord color like we did to ensure a cohesive design flow in their space.

The End Result

In the end, all of these fixtures came together to create a space that was perfectly designed to highlight the delicious Tex-Mex food and tasty margaritas of the Rio Grande restaurant. If you happen to be craving those two things, the Rio Grande in Boulder is our recommended spot — just remember to look up and enjoy the custom restaurant lighting!

Are you a DIYer that’s hoping to spruce up your home? Are you a designer hoping to enhance a commercial space? Then, Color Cord Company is the one-stop custom light fixture shop for you! Explore our inventory of ready-made fixtures or create your own today!