Firehouse Restaurant Rebrand

Client: Firehouse Restaurant, Johnson City, Tennessee

Position: Graphic Designer & Art Director, The High Road Agency

Logo Design

Over the years, Firehouse Restaurant expanded its facilities, hours, menu, and services to better serve the community boasting great food, famous hospitality, and growing tomorrow’s leaders. Firehouse Restaurant’s prosperous and storied history challenged us to view the restaurant with fresh eyes to refresh its current branding and reflect how far it has come.

Firehouse Restaurant’s brand has multiple elements: primary restaurant logo, secondary barbecue logo, catering logo, employee patch, and catering patch.

All logos now boast a new timeless fire helmet and refined serif font to suggest the weight of Firehouse Restaurant’s history. The primary restaurant logo proudly displays No. 2 on the fire helmet serving to reference the West Walnut Street Fire Hall in which the restaurant resides. Built in 1930, the Walnut Street Fire Hall served Johnson City as Station No. 2 until 1976.

A Family Tradition

While rebranding Firehouse Restaurant, we discovered the rich history of this local barbecue joint. What began as a way to pay their way through college, Tom Seaton and Jimmy Carter opened Bucwood Bar-B-Que in 1980 in the back storeroom of “Buc Plaza” convenience market with a simple menu of barbecue sandwiches and side items. Bucwood was so well received that it outgrew its first location and swiftly grew into the West Walnut Street Fire Station in the following years opening as Firehouse Restaurant and maintaining a unique dining experience.