BAD ROMAN
Turning a cultural storm into an enduring brand icon.
The Moment
Bad Roman opened into a perfect cultural storm. Maximalism was back, Italian-American nostalgia was being reinterpreted through fashion and pop culture, and New York was hungry for restaurants that felt fun again.
From day one, the restaurant captured attention. The question wasn’t whether Bad Roman would be noticed—it was whether the brand underneath the spectacle was clear enough to endure, evolve, and expand.
The Challenge
Success can be fragile in its early stages. Bad Roman’s world was bold, referential, and intentionally irreverent—but without a clear strategic center, it risked becoming over-indexed on aesthetic without cohesion.
The challenge was not to "reinvent" Bad Roman, but to articulate what it already was. We needed to ensure the brand didn't get locked into a single moment, but was built for evolution—allowing it to extend into products and new categories without diluting its point of view.
The Work
Brand Crystallization
Gist developed a brand platform that clarified Bad Roman’s emotional DNA and creative boundaries. Centered around the core brand idea of Culture Hunger, we captured its appetite for indulgence and humor while giving the team a shared language for decision-making. The framework was designed to be directive, not restrictive—bold enough to lead, yet flexible enough to adapt across interior experience, menu expression, and voice.
Culture Hunger signifies a cultural and consumerist movement.
CPG Expansion Strategy
Building on this foundation, we developed a roadmap for Bad Roman to live beyond the restaurant. Rather than defaulting to a vanity product, we sought a truly viable gap in the market. We landed on balsamic glaze—an undeniably Italian, craveable pantry staple that currently suffers from zero brand loyalty and a total lack of quality claims. It was the perfect white space to differentiate on quality and build cult-level brand love. Designed for unexpected applications, from ice cream to cocktails, the product needed a name that captured its irreverent versatility. We landed on Samic Sauce.
The Samic Sauce family: Calibrean Chili, Classico, and Black Fig.
Content for Samic Sauce highlights unexpected use-cases, like cocktails and desserts.
The Impact
Bad Roman is now strategically armed to bring the brand cross-country — from city streets to suburban supermarkets. For now, they continue to own the New York dining scene, serving cultural relevance as a first course.
The Gist
It takes wild talent to create a cultural storm. It takes ruthless strategy to ensure it lasts. Bad Roman’s ownership understood that without a foundational brand and product architecture, early hype can easily fizzle out. By anchoring their massive momentum to a scalable framework, Bad Roman didn't just capture lightning in a bottle—they built the system to sustain it.