Mesher Shing

Specialty: Hospitality architecture

Management: Robert Mesher, principal

Founded: 1978

Headquarters: Seattle

2006 revenues: N/A

Projected 2007 revenues: N/A

Current projects: Arctic Restaurant, Seattle; Purdue Memorial Union at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.

Photo courtesy of Mesher Shing Mesher Shing has found a niche in designing college cafeterias, such as this one at the University of California, Berkeley.

Shannon McNutt, principal of interior design at Mesher Shing, said the company has been propelled into the national market for revamping university campus cafeterias due to its work at the University of Washington campus.

“The most interesting thing for us is our expertise in the private food sector has really thrown us forward in the college food service realm. We’re doing a lot of universities around the country,” she said.

Recent clients include Princeton University in New Jersey, Purdue University in Indiana and University of California, Berkeley. She said Stanford University is also considering the company.

Mesher Shing’s entry into the market began locally at the UW when it did the cafeterias in The Hub, McMahon Hall and Terry Lander Hall. The university wanted designs that were extraordinary and called to the students. That emphasis has become important, McNutt said, because today’s generation of students expect more from their universities.

“The university starts competing with the mall and what’s on main street in order to keep business,” she said. “They have to be equal or better than what’s available.”

For Princeton, that meant a Harry Potter-esque, Gothic-themed design. For UC Berkeley, that meant an Asian theme. At the UW’s Terry Lander Hall, it was a “super bright and fun” design of green and red colors and upholstery that was “non-traditional in terms of the treatment.”

But the firm isn’t concentrating all its efforts on campus projects. It recently took on restaurant design for a series of oversees family themed resorts called Center Parc. Mesher Shing is developing the restaurant design for eight to 10 fun-filled locations around the United Kingdom.