Photo courtesy of ArnoldAnd
Matthew Arnold
Founder, ArnoldAnd
Age: 43
Industry experience: 14 years
Restaurant groups in Boston turn to Matthew Arnold for inspiration when preparing to debut a new concept. At Boston-based architect Hacin, Arnold designed restaurants such as Black Lamb and Shore Leave in South End for chef Colin Lynch’s Traveler Street Hospitality. At his one-year-old architecture firm, ArnoldAnd, the next project will be Traveler Street Hospitality’s fifth location, FiDO Pizza, at Allston Labworks. Chef Colin Lynch’s New York-style pizzeria signed the inaugural retail lease last winter at King Street Properties’ life science development. But Arnold also finds time to step away from the table and pursue design work in the luxury residential sector. The Medway native founded his own firm, ArnoldAnd, in June 2024, and is pursuing a dual specialty in hospitality and high-end housing.
Q: What was your goal in creating the ambience at Shore Leave, a modern-day spin on the tiki bar in South End?
A: That was one of my favorite projects ever, because the client and one of the partners, Jefferson Macklin, became a friend, and I just loved working with that crew. Something that we talked about from day one was: How do we make it feel like a tiki bar, but not kitschy and not something that felt unauthentic? Colin is a renowned chef with elevated food. We came up with this term “cheeky tiki.” We clearly knew we could repurpose a lot of the tiki materials in a cleaner, more contemporary way. It wasn’t just about sticking things on the wall.
Q: What is the vision for FiDO Pizza at Allston Labworks?
A: This was a truly collaborative effort with Boston Urban, who served as architect of record. Colin [Lynch] wanted to do pizza shop and a lot of his cuisine is Italian-inspired. Also due to the location, they wanted it to be a little bit more approachable and informal: an after-work place, college people, biotech people and a little bit more of a neighborhood spot. They were charging us with how to do something a little bit more fun and approachable, but we’re not trying to create a dive bar. We made some nods to the old-school pizza shop by having banquettes, and a big bar presence in the center of the space directly in line as you walk in, so the bar is commanding the space. It was one of my first projects out of the gate and got me going in the business.
ArnoldAnd will be designing interiors for the first restaurant tenant at King Street Properties’ Allston Labworks development on Western Avenue, an outpost of Traveler Street Hospitality’s FiDO Pizza. Image courtesy of DiMella Shaffer
Q: Do you need different skill sets working with residential clients?
A: Absolutely. Because of the network I brought from Hacin I found myself doing the exact type of projects. My workload didn’t change starting my own practice. I’m still working with a lot of the same clients. What I realize is I love the dichotomy of the two. Hospitality is looser, it’s faster, it’s deadline-driven. There’s not as much emotion involved in the process. The residential stuff is a lot more emotional. It’s a lot more concept-driven, spending time with your client and getting to know them. What’s wrong with your current house? Why do you want to build a new house? The commercial stuff makes me sharper in the residential world and super confident in the solutions I proposed.
Q: Have you seen recent price volatility for materials?
A: Furniture is one of those things where trends happen, and they can trend in and out. With furniture coming from other parts of the world, it used to be cheap, and now it’s not so cheap. And there’s going to be some more domestic suppliers that can compete with that, even pre-tariffs. Anything out of Europe has been expensive, because people like the European style. But with tile, it’s amazing – the price points. For less than $10 a square foot, you can get fantastic tiles that you couldn’t get five years ago.
Q: How did your opportunity to join Hacin originate?
A: David was my professor in graduate school at Northeastern back in 2007, and I was a coop there. In 2011 when I graduated, there wasn’t much going on and he said, “Why don’t you come back and work full-time?” I was there almost 15 years. When I started, I might have been the 12th employee, so it’s grown quite a bit over time. We did quite a bit of multifamily and hospitality and retail. I generally live in the retail and hospitality sectors, but also did some residential work because that was David’s bread and butter. Everybody who works there touches residential at some time. I was responsible for a number of restaurants, retail stores and office spaces, and the architecture of District Hall in the Seaport. But I did some townhouses and some flats, and it was fun to pivot back and forth between all of those projects. I was young and living in the city and I loved working on restaurants, because I spent a lot of time in bars and restaurants. A lot of my friends are in the hospitality scene, and it was really fun to design.
Arnold’s Five Habits for Building a Resilient Practice:
- Get informed
- Prioritize health
- Tend to your network
- Know your strengths
- Stay open and flexible
