Cool Beans - A Kidney-Focused Restaurant Concept
“Chronic Kidney disease affects an estimated 37 million people in the US and approximately 90% of those with CKD don’t even know they have it”
While I was officially diagnosed with Polycystic Kidney Disease in September 2019, I’ve known with some certainty that I’d likely have the disease since eighth grade when I had a spinal fusion surgery to correct my scoliosis and spots showed up on my kidneys in the pre-op testing. You can read more about my PKD diagnosis here.
There’s been a long history of PKD in my family and ADPKD (Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease) is genetic. I’ve watched my close family members experience and struggle through dialysis and transplants and feel all too familiar with the disease. Most of my family members weren’t affected until their 40s or 50s, so I expected it to be the same for me.
After being diagnosed, understanding a renal diet became a large personal frustration. Struggling through understanding a renal diet sparked the idea for Cool Beans. I decided to built a restaurant concept and menu around a renal diet to both develop a useful resource for fellow kidney patients and educate the general public about Kidney Disease in a creative way.
Cool Beans deliverables included branding for the restaurant concept, a renal diet inspired menu, mural artwork that could live in the imaginary brick and mortar location, social media graphics, creative marketing strategy, kidney-specific merchandise, and more. The project quickly grew beyond a simple idea for a restaurant and menu to a full branded case study with education about kidney disease throughout.
The most foundational piece of this project has been the menu design. In part because of it’s accuracy. I hired a registered renal dietitian from UChicago, Melanie Betz, to develop an accurate menu that would provide legitimately beneficial information to those in a similar situation to me because understanding what to eat as a kidney patient is hard.
We decided to focus on those with kidney disease who do not yet have decreased kidney function. The ultimate goal with this menu is to address the horrible feeling of “only being able to eat white rice” which many newly diagnosed kidney disease patients might feel when embarking on learning about all that renal diets entail.
In researching for this project, I quickly found that there weren’t a ton of great designs and products in existence for kidney patients to honor their experiences and share their story with the world. This growing collection of kidney-centric and living-donor focused designs will be used to promote the cause and continue to grow into a product line that I hope to get in the hands of many other kidney patients. If you know someone going through treatment for Kidney Disease, I hope you’ll consider purchasing one of my stickers to send to them and show your support.
It is my sincere hope that this project inspires those that take the time to read about it. Kidney Disease truly affects so many and I think we can all benefit from a greater understanding of its impact. If this project saves one person by encouraging them to get tested or provides comfort to someone feels alone in having Kidney Disease, then I’ve accomplished what I’ve set out to do. Having chronic and invisible illnesses can be a hard thing to go through alone. Working on this project has provided me immense comfort, knowing that I am doing what I can with my talents to further the cause and open up an opportunity to connect with others whose lives are impacted by PKD and other forms of Kidney Disease.
One of the best things you can do today to make a difference in the lives of kidney patients if you are personally unaffected by Kidney Disease is to register to be an organ donor and consider getting tested to be a living donor. You only need one kidney to lead a healthy life and your spare could make a world of a difference for someone like myself who will need a transplant one day to maintain a good quality of life.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Chelsie Tamms is an award-winning lettering artist and designer based out of Chicago. She is the owner of Lettering Works, a branding studio that connects businesses to their audience through creativity and strategy. With over 10 years of practice of lettering and design, Chelsie is passionate about craft and intention. When she’s not designing, she can be found eating ice cream, traveling internationally, or starting a new passion project.
