Stampede Cocktail Club • Hospitality
A cocktail menu people ask to take home
Stampede wanted a menu that did more than list drinks. Each season becomes an illustrated story — a graphic novel you happen to order from. Brought on as a designer, the role grew into directing every visual the club puts out.
A drink list is a utility
Most bar menus exist to be read once and put down. Stampede's owner wanted the opposite — something with the pull of the sci-fi and fantasy he builds the bar's world from, and enough character that guests would talk about it.
That ambition carries a risk that gets underrated. The more visual weight a menu carries, the harder it is to use. Somebody who came in to find a drink shouldn't have to hunt through a story to do it.
Let the art run wild, keep the structure fixed
The resolution was architectural rather than decorative. Illustration on one side of the spread, drinks on the other — and a set of visual elements that never move, no matter how strange the page gets. Guests learn the pattern once, then trust it, and the story is free to do whatever it wants inside that frame.
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Draw first
Pen and paper before anything else — the fastest way to find a character and a world. The cartooned house dog became a cyber dog trying to get home.
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Fix the page architecture
One illustrated page, one drinks page, and a consistent visual language across both. A softer global face acts as the stringer tying every unique spread together.
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Repeat across the book
Each spread gets its own type treatment and illustrated drinks, built to the same rules — so the book reads as one object rather than a stack of experiments.
A new story every season
Menus turn over roughly every six months. Each one is a different premise held to the same structural rules.
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Winter
A graphic-novel epic following a kidnapped pup turned cyber dog on his way home. Released December 2025.
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New Year, non-alcoholic
Stampede is known for NA cocktails that stand on their own, so the menu is a pure study of type — loud, and still balanced.
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Summer
A Clue-style whodunit where every character is a bartender, an employee, or a regular — and the purple mansion doubles as an ad for the sister bar.
Guests ask to buy the menu
The winter menu landed on the first of December and did exactly what it was built to do. Staff regularly watch customers laugh and point out favorite details to each other, and multiple guests have asked to buy a copy to take home. Driving interaction and social exchange was the brief; that's the evidence it worked.
The Clue menu extended the idea further — casting staff and regulars as the characters gave the room a sense of ownership over the space, and the setting quietly advertises the sister bar at the same time.
The engagement grew with the work. What began as a graphic design contract is now full art direction across seasonal menus, merchandise, event graphics, and day-to-day social.