What the...? The FV Westward Has Arrived!

That there is not just a huge fishing vessel, it's the centerpiece of the soon-to-open Westward. The hired creative gun, Electric Coffin, is putting the finishing touches on the restaurant's nautical backbar, which, at 20-feet long, will certainly dominate the lake-side space. It's a lot to look at (this is another angle, and a cool video), so here's some intel straight from Westward owner, Josh Henderson:

The inspiration behind it is that we originally wanted the idea of Westward to be kind of like the Wes Anderson movie Life Aquatic. There's that scene where they do that diorama where they take a cross-section of an apartment and you see the people walking in between the different rooms. [Electric Coffin] would send me random ideas, "How about we put Hulk Hogan and Randy 'Macho Man' Savage in a wrestling ring in one of the vignettes."

It's a bunch of sections of little things. Like, in one of the boxes is a polar bear and in another one there's a garden scape; there's all these different things. It's super random. We want it to be that when you walk into the space you'll see a boat, but if you look closer, you're seeing all this stuff in there. The part about it that I love is that it looks like a great old boat. And then in between it's all these wacky things.

Fun fact: Electric Coffin also did the airstream painting that hangs at the Capitol Hill Skillet Diner. Of course, it's not nearly as big as this new piece of art, which Josh admits he was really nervous about: "I kept thinking, 'Well, this could completely suck and be an absolute disaster. Some people might think it's hideous, but I think it's pretty cool."

Look for Westward to open in late August (the week of the 23rd was bandied about).

· All Westward Coverage [~ESEA~]
· Westward [Official Site]
· Westward [Facebook]