Blue exterior paint, again

Margot opened in Brooklyn last month. The building is blue. Very blue. Two stories, corner lot, the kind of blue that photographs well against red brick and shows up in every third scroll session by Thursday.

Eater calls it the restaurant industry's "blue period," which is generous. It's closer to a paint-chip consensus. The shade tracks back to Yves Klein Blue, the artist's trademarked pigment from 1960, now in public domain and available at any Benjamin Moore. A gallon runs $68. Three coats, one weekend, and a restaurant exterior that was beige last year is now Instagrammable.

The pattern started in Paris in 2022. Le Rigmarole repainted its storefront. Then Clown Bar in the 11th. Then a wine bar in the 3rd whose name no one remembers but whose blue everyone screenshots. London followed. Brat, Rochelle Canteen's annex, a natural wine spot in Peckham. Brooklyn caught up last fall. Margot is the fourth in a six-block radius.

The color works because it's specific enough to feel like a choice but vague enough to not be owned by anyone. It's not Tiffany blue, not Dodger blue, not a brand lock. Just blue, but the right blue, the one that says "we care about design" without saying much else.

The tell

The exterior is the cheapest rebrand available. Signage costs $4,000. A new awning, $8,000. Facade paint, if you do it yourself, costs under $300 in materials. The return is immediate. A restaurant that was invisible on a block becomes the block. The before-and-after gets picked up by neighborhood blogs, design accounts, sometimes Eater.

Margot's owner told Eater the blue was "a nod to the Mediterranean." That's the line every operator gives. Mediterranean, or French countryside, or "we wanted something joyful." The real tell is the second sentence, which Eater didn't print but is always some version of: "We saw it work for [another restaurant]."