Case study · Charleston, South Carolina
Uptown Social, Charleston: A Zinc Bar and Copper Tables Built to Last
A new zinc bar top with a pillowed edge the owners picked, a flip gate, a custom drink rail, and round copper tables, built for a King Street venue that had been through more than one failed bar.
Photo: 3 Spark Design
The Brief
We met the Uptown Social team at the Bar & Restaurant Expo in Las Vegas, in March 2024, our second year exhibiting there. They’d had multiple bars fail.
Uptown Social sits at 587 King Street in Charleston. It’s the flagship venue of Uptown Hospitality Group, a Charleston hospitality group with New York roots. Our job was the bar in its upstairs Cooper Room. The owners needed a bar that would hold up to King Street nightlife.
01
The Challenge
When bars keep failing the same way, it usually isn’t bad luck. The cause is what’s underneath. These tops were built on wooden cores, and that was why they kept failing.
On a working bar, water is constant: glasses, ice wells, spills, nightly cleanup. It finds the seams, the wooden core swells and breaks down, and the surface on top lets go. We explained that at the show, then drove down from Hickory to see the bar ourselves.
It was failing just the way we’d described. The surface was lifting and flaking along the service side, the old drink rail had badly deteriorated, and where the top was opened up, the wooden core underneath was water-stained and breaking down.
02
Our Solution
We didn’t patch the bad sections. We replaced the entire bar.
A new bar top, without a wooden core. We don’t build on wooden cores. We use deposition to apply thin coats of material in a controlled manner to build up the surface, which lets us take on complex curves and custom edge profiles. This top is real zinc.
A new edge profile, chosen by the owners. They picked a pillowed edge that gives the bar much more personality than the one it replaced. On a bar people lean on all night, the edge is what guests see first and touch most.
A flip gate that reads as part of the bar. The flip gate at the service end carries the same pillowed edge, so when it’s down, the bar reads as one continuous piece.
A custom drink rail by KegWorks along the service side.
Round copper tables. We also made round copper tables for the venue. Copper is a living metal too, so they’ll warm and darken right alongside the zinc.
Living with a bar that keeps failing?
Let’s look at what’s underneath.
03
The Result
The new bar was finished in October 2024. It turned out great. The zinc and pillowed edge sit right at home between the photo wall, the marble-look bar front, and the hex tile.
How the surface wears in. Zinc is a living metal. With daily service it will soften and darken, and the places hands land most, like the pillowed edge, the corners, and the flip gate, will build their own patina over time.
Working With Restaurant Groups
A bar top fabricator for restaurant groups has to get two things right: a bar that holds up through high-volume service, and a team that shows up when something goes wrong.
We start from the bar, the room, and how it’s used, and we never build on a wooden core.
Questions
Why did Uptown Social replace its bars?
The earlier bars were built on wooden cores. Water from glasses, ice wells, spills, and nightly cleanup worked into the seams, so the owners chose new tops built on a waterproof core.
What did the replacement include?
A new zinc bar top with a pillowed edge chosen by the owners, a flip gate with the same edge, a custom drink rail, and round copper tables. It was finished in October 2024.
Had more than one bar fail on you?
Let’s talk about your project.