LED Source Creates Custom LED Lighting Solution for Meizhou Dongpo's Inaugural US Restaurant

LED lighting is turning ceilings and walls into expressive canvases of color, as LED Source, the North American LED lighting solutions provider, proved in Century City for Meizhou Dongpo's first restaurant in the United States.

The restaurant opened in December, grabbing diners and decorators by their palettes with flavorful food and colorful décor provided by LED Source's Los Angeles partner Rob Thompson. "They were looking for somebody in the States. It was their first location, and they wanted to do something quite different, it being their flagship store," Thompson says.

Meizhou Dongpo officials had seen photos of Miami Tower, an LED Source project located in Miami, and called him in March 2013, nine months before the restaurant opened in the Westfield Shopping Mall.

"They had an idea of what they wanted. They had something similar in China," Thompson says, adding that they sent him plans, and he contacted the architect.

Meizhou Dongpo wanted to light both interior and exterior walls as well as 475 lit vases set in glass-lined cubby holes along interior walls, with the ability to control the colors for each cubby. From that, Thompson said it was a matter of figuring out which LED Source lighting products would work best.

"I've got a team of pros who've seen a lot of different scenarios," he says. "It really came down to experience."

That experience included Gavin Cooper -- a world-renown lighting designer who co-founded LED Source in 2005 with lighting industry veteran Marcel Fairbairn -- and LED Source's lighting applications engineer Lee Braddock, both of whom came from the company's home office in Wellington, Florida to help design and build the lighting system.

Not only does LED Source's "Red, Green, Blue" lighting system set Meizhou Dongpo apart from its neighboring establishments, it reduces energy and operating costs while providing better light quality and a comfortable atmosphere for franchisees and customers alike, the company says.