The ice cream parlour in Prague's Vinohrady is without a doubt one of the most popular Czech ice cream parlours. The secret of its success lies in quality ingredients and honest First Republic recipes. But it is also worth mentioning the interior itself, matched down to the last detail, including our Artigo rubber flooring.
Behind the Ice Cream parlour is the family company 2AD, founded by Darek Hrivňák and Alena Hrivňáková together with their children Darek and Alice in 2008. Initially, they only sold their ice cream in Tuchlovice. They later moved to nearby Kačice, and at the same time the plan to open a branch directly in Prague came to fruition. It was named Zmrzlinář and is located on Slezská Street in Prague's Vinohrady.
The site of the current shop was originally a café, and the space required a complete reconstruction. The professional approach is already confirmed by the exterior, which does not clash with the surroundings and makes the beauty of Macešek's palace from the end of the 1920s stand out, as well as the large glass shop windows made of bent glass. It was clear to the architects that they wanted to work with the space as non-violently as possible and eliminate as many barriers separating the interior space from the street as possible. In addition, they managed to remove all unnecessary things and advertising banners from the façade.
They treated the interior in a similar way, which is simple, clean, does not force itself on you and makes the most essential part of the space stand out: a large ice cream counter, which can be seen from the street. "We wanted to connect the interior with the exterior as much as possible", explains Martin Roubíček, who also created the company's logo. The exterior is linked, among other things, to the oak floor in a light grey shade, which should freely follow the colour of the outdoor paving. Behind the bar, the wood turns into a durable and comfortable black Artigo rubber floor with a delicate natural pattern, which together with the white tiles delimits the working space of the "ice cream parlour's stand".
The interior is very simply designed, with clean lines. Our Company designed and installed the floors in the part of Zmrzlinář that is located in the background and behind the counter. For greater comfort, a rubber covering was chosen – Kayar from the Italian brand Artigo, with a smooth surface and a pattern of fine fibres on a black background.
The rubber is soft to the tread, walking on it is more pleasant than on harder materials, which will be especially appreciated by the operators in demanding operation. At the same time, the rubber floor is highly durable and, thanks to a special surface treatment, also easy to maintain, with a bonus being its long service life. In combination with the light oak floor used in the front part of the ice cream parlour, it looks very natural; in both cases it involves natural materials that complement each other perfectly.
Rubber is more flexible and pleasant to walk on than conventional floor materials, but at the same time it is highly durable. The staff is on their feet throughout the shift and a softer floor is definitely more suitable for them. At the same time, I like the purely natural composition of rubber, which fits perfectly into the overall concept and choice of materials.
The walls are the work of painters-patinators Libor Michálek, Bára Petříková and David Trávníček. They also connect the interior with the street, both in terms of colour and the technique used, which includes painting and spraying different shades of colour in layers.
The implementation involved not only building, but also demolishing. In particular, the Zmrzlinář team had a tough time with the two large supporting columns at the entrance, which had to first be stripped of the shop window partition and then provided with texturised artificial stone – the same material from which the entire First Republic façade at Macešek's Palace is made. "Thanks to the unified material, the columns move smoothly from the exterior to the interior, so the space became even more aerated and opened", says Martin Roubíček. Unfortunately, the texturising and lining of the columns themselves are very noisy activities that other tenants of the building disliked. In the end, everything was solved thanks to ice cream bribes, which, according to Michal Gerych, is "real proof of the quality of our ice cream".
Using an article by Veronika Čáslavská: Zmrzlinář: Místo, nad kterým se olíznete