Restaurant · Brand Photography
bartaco
Brand photography for bartaco, a national restaurant group with a devoted following, built around its laid-back coastal aesthetic, inventive taco menu, and the particular pleasure of eating great food in a space that feels genuinely relaxed.
The project produced imagery across food, cocktails, people, and atmosphere: a visual library calibrated for bartaco's distinctive brand voice: coastal, casual, and consistently excellent.
About the Project
Brand photography that captures a restaurant's personality
bartaco has built one of the most recognizable brand identities in the casual dining category, a point of view that extends from the food to the playlist to the way the light comes through the windows. The photography needed to reinforce that identity without over-styling it: bartaco should look like bartaco, not like a generic taco brand.
Tom's approach prioritized the authentic energy of the restaurants (real food, real light, real people) while making sure every image met the visual standard that a national brand requires for menus, marketing, and digital channels.
Approach & Craft
Casual dining photography that doesn't look corporate
One of the challenges in photographing casual dining brands is avoiding imagery that looks over-produced and disconnected from the actual experience of eating there. Tom's food photography background, and his experience photographing restaurant interiors in active service conditions, produces images that feel both polished and genuinely true to the brand.
Available for casual dining brand photography, national restaurant group visual identity, ongoing content partnerships, and social media photography programs. Based in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, available at bartaco locations nationwide.
This bartaco photography was later featured in FSR Magazine's coverage of the brand's team-based approach to COVID-19 survival. See the full list of press features.