Coastal Restaurant Feature Wall for Salt & Tide

About This Project

Objective: Salt & Tide needed a feature wall that captured the energy of Southern California's coastline and gave their dining room a sense of place without resorting to clichéd beach décor.

Design Approach: We created an abstract coastal mural using layered washes of ocean blues, sandy neutrals, and seafoam greens that evoke the feeling of the coast through color and movement rather than literal imagery.

Salt & Tide is a seafood-forward restaurant in Seal Beach that draws its menu from the day’s catch and its identity from the Pacific coastline just blocks away. The interior design leans into natural materials — reclaimed wood, linen, raw stone — but the main dining room wall was a blank canvas that the owners had been debating for months. They’d seen too many coastal restaurants lean on predictable nautical themes and wanted something that felt elevated and abstract while still unmistakably connected to the ocean.

We developed a mural concept that translates the coastal experience into pure color and form. Layered washes of deep ocean blue, pale seafoam, and warm sand tones sweep across the wall in broad, gestural strokes that suggest the movement of water without depicting it literally. The composition has an organic asymmetry — denser and darker on the left, opening into lighter, airier tones on the right — that creates a natural sense of flow across the dining room. The direct-to-wall printing process captured the subtle gradients and translucent layering effects with a fidelity that would be nearly impossible to achieve by hand at this scale.

The wall immediately changed the character of the room. Diners seated along the feature wall consistently describe the atmosphere as calming and immersive, and the mural has been mentioned in dozens of online reviews as a highlight of the experience. Salt & Tide’s marketing team uses the wall as a backdrop for menu photography and seasonal promotions, and it’s become as much a part of the restaurant’s identity as the food itself.