Why So Many Restaurants Are Going Full Horse Girl

According to the Chinese zodiac, it’s the year of the horse — and that’s abundantly clear in hospitality.

In February, Derby Cup Coffee swung open its New York City doors with an unbuttoned approach to Kentucky Derby prep. April marked the grand reopening and rebranding of Eugene, Oregon’s 80-year-old bar and restaurant the Paddock, a former sports bar that has retained much of its tavern-like spirit (now accented with cheeky, minimalist horse drawings), but with a new menu of nostalgic dishes like eggs Rockefeller, fried oyster sandwiches, and smoked potato poutine. Set to open this August in Red Hook, Brooklyn, is Pony’s: a cocktail bar whose WIP exterior teases its ambiance with a poster of a galloping pony whose expression reads, I trot where I please.

This is all the continuation of an ongoing wave of horse-themed bars, restaurants, and businesses. There was last summer’s highly anticipated opening of Il Cavallini, the Four Horsemen team’s also-equine-branded follow-up restaurant, in Brooklyn; in August, the vinyl wine bar Horse With No Name trotted into the East Village with mustard-hued walls and the kinds of rodeo clown paintings that I imagine Terry Allen would enjoy. (We must also mention the loss of some big horse energy with the shuttering of Horses in Los Angeles, although it went out with all the drama of a Western.)

Why all the horsing around in hospitality? And what does this new wave of equine (yes, I am running out of ways to say horse) branding say about the symbolism of horse decor, which is steeped in tradition, preppiness, and a Ralph Lauren-tinged version of Americana? A horse is a horse of course of course, but owning one has often reflected a symbol of either ascot-adjacent social status or rustic, John Grady Cole know-how.

According to Nick Johnson, the creative director at All Good, an agency specializing in restaurant branding that has worked with the likes of Kellogg’s Diner (Brooklyn) and the Benjamin (Los Angeles), “There has been a push towards reinterpreting classic heritage branding over the past few years within the hospitality industry. I think there is a natural urge to pair those types of experiences with a timeless aesthetic […] be it a horse, swan, or fox, it’s a formula that works.” (The same couldn’t be said, he notes, of lions or snakes — animals with “far less versatile vibes.”) Horses offer a more flexible branding opportunity: “[They] can just as easily represent a sense of wildness, speed, and adventure as they can refinement, quiet luxury or prestige.” In an industry that hinges on dynamism, a horse can become both posh and approachable.

I spoke with Derby Cup Coffee founder Yasmin Kaytmaz (also a partner at the subtly horse-adorned River bar), who explained that her love of all things equestrian runs in the family. “I grew up as a horseback rider,” she says, “and my mom had a racehorse, which is kind of why I wanted to do something along those lines. And it kind of matched the idea of, like, drinking coffee and like going fast, getting ahead.” Outside, Derby Cup is decorated with a Dartmouth-green awning and striped walls; inside, you’ll find mellow shades of yellow and green rarely seen in often beige modern coffee shops. Should you choose, you can sip your matcha mint julep from a Brutalist stool, beside a delightfully Francis Bacon-y horse sculpture. It’s the kind of aesthetic that feels, well, not quite bound to tradition, but tipping a jockey cap to it — with a touch of irony.

“That Ralph Lauren-y kind of look has been coming back to New York quite a bit,” Kaytmaz explains, “but I wanted Derby to feel more relaxed. The idea was that this might be a room that jockeys hang out in.” It’s a bit preppy, a bit moody, and doesn’t take itself too seriously. The customer water station is inspired by a barn, and features a horse-shaped faucet that is positioned at an ideal bucket-filling height. “It may not have been practical,” says Kaymatz, “in fact we knew it would be an absolute pain in the ass. But we were like, We have to do this.”

Pony’s co-founder and self-proclaimed horse girl Elana Shvalbe told me how her horse hospitality vision goes beyond, in her words, an overtly “horseback riding-themed or Western” bar. As Shvalbe says, “The concept of Pony’s is that it’s possessive. We talk about it like the pony owns the bar. We ask ourselves what the pony’s world is like.” Shvalbe and her co-founder and husband Michael Furac want Pony’s to exude a kind of casual, pastoral elegance. “Without sounding cheesy,” she says, “I’ll think, That shade of green? That’s Pony’s meadow, or Okay, the bathroom is going to be very blue.” There will also be glass elements intended to mimic sun and hay, intended to evoke an abstract interpretation of the pony’s field.

Patrons can expect the occasional drawing of a horse on the wall or a tiny horseshoe in a corner, but both the space’s decor and menu (it’s slated to open later this summer) will lean into an ambiance that feels tenderly nuanced. Small bites and drinks will be reflective of Shvalbe and Furac’s “Eastern European origins, with a mix of Baltic and Mediterranean flavors,” and there will be nods to Pony, the entity, all over the menu: a grassy, vegetal martini “fit for Pony,” a beer and shot combo called the Double Pony (a working title), Miller High Life’s Pony bottles, and a pony shot, which Shvalbe says is an “old-timey word used to describe an ounce in the 1850s.”

Instead of leaning into some kind of uppity dressage, this new wave of horse-branded restaurants, bars, and cafes feels more interested in being light and imaginative than exclusive. The Seabiscuit-paced rise of horse branding feels spiritually related to the wave of new British pubs and tavern-like restaurants; these are spaces with inviting, wood-panelled interiors, Mother Goose-like tchotchkes, and throwback dishes that read like childhood favorites of older generations (the popular stargazy pie at NYC British spot Dean’s comes to mind). As Eater reported in October, there has been a shift away from the postmodern beige-washed restaurants of the late 2010s and a move towards restaurants with more worn-in, intimate-feeling artifacts. As we trend further in this direction, we can likely expect to see even more personal, engaging reinterpretations of old-world motifs and traditions through a fresh (and less serious) lens. (In Derby’s case: Why not fill up your water glass as if you’ve just entered a barn?)

Few animals can evoke such a unique mix of awe and affection as a horse: it trots, gallops, kicks, and nuzzles; it’s for romance-novel maidens, farmers, jockeys, and cowboys. Owning one has always been a marker of prestige, yet relating one’s spirit to that of a horse (please see: Season 2, Episode 18 of Sex and the City) traditionally signals a passionate and untamable sense of self-possession and headstrong independence. There’s a note at the end of the menu at the Paddock that echoes this feel-good daydream, reading: “There was once a time when horses ran free on [our location at] East Amazon Drive. Maybe? Probably.” All we can do is imagine.