Smithfield Hall New York
Branding New York’s Premier Football Bar.
The Brief
Smithfield Hall is an Irish-owned football bar in the heart of Chelsea, Manhattan, just a couple of blocks from Madison Square Garden, and a home away from home for New York’s expat and football-mad communities. The name is a nod to the Smithfield Horse Fair in Dublin, one of the city’s oldest and most enduring traditions, and that heritage became the seed for everything that followed.
The brief was simple to say and harder to deliver: make Smithfield Hall feel, look, and sound like the best football bar in NYC.
Our Approach
We built the identity around two ideas pulled straight from Smithfield’s Dublin roots, the horse, an icon of the historic fair, and an industrial, no-nonsense approach to typography and layout that echoes the markets, warehouses, and trading floors the name comes from.
The result is a brand that’s bold without being flashy, rooted in Irish heritage but built for a New York crowd. The horse mark became a consistent thread through every touchpoint, paired with a confident, utilitarian type system that holds up on a pint glass, a match-day poster, or a illuminated sign above the bar.
Delivery
We built an identity designed to work as hard on a menu as it does on a 6-foot sign, then carried it through every touchpoint in the bar: signage, beer mats, and a matchday social toolkit the team could use to post fast and stay on-brand, whether it’s a 6am kickoff or a Saturday derby.
On the digital side, we built a website designed to do real work, not just look good. It features a rotating seasonal beers menu, dedicated pages for Smithfield’s various supporters clubs, and a sophisticated football fixtures system that lets fans filter upcoming matches by country and competition and see exactly when and where to catch their team.
Smithfield Hall is the best soccer bar in New York City.
The Infatuation
