The Illustrator Who Enlivens Menus, Merchandise, and More for the Restaurants of Lettuce Entertain You

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At one point, if you asked for a dessert menu at Ramen-san, you got a comic strip. Instead of a simple list of dishes, there were black-and-white panels featuring an ice cream cone-wielding panda, startled anthropomorphic cream puffs, and the restaurant’s Lucky Cat mascot, all done in a flamboyant, action-packed style.

Across W. Hubbard Street at the subterranean Three Dots and a Dash, the enormous menu of tropical cocktails includes vibrant drawings of the fish, skulls, barnacles, and barrels that serve as glasses, topped with plentiful garnishes.

The “art conveys the same sense of craft and detail we put into every cocktail,” emails Kevin Beary, the beverage director and a partner at Three Dots.

The illustrations are the work of Alex Payne, the in-house illustrator for the Lettuce Entertain You restaurant group that includes Ramen-san, Three Dots, Café Ba-Ba-Reeba!, Joe’s Seafood, and numerous other spots. His work enlivens everything from gift cards to glasses, coasters to emails, T-shirts to to-go packaging. He created the Lucky Cat character, “who really embodies the personality of Sushi-san,” emails Sushi-san partner Darryl Smith. A comic book design for a Halloween event at Three Dots “felt like the perfect marriage of our cocktails’ personality and his artistic style — colorful, layered, and just the right amount of escapism,” says Beary. He’s done an almost Impressionistic illustration for the French bistro Mon Ami Gabi, pin-up style drawings for the barbecue and country fest Windy City Smokeout, and a classic line cartoon for R.J. Grunts.

“He’s an absolute chameleon,” says Jason Hollembeak, creative director for Lettuce. “He definitely has that ability to just jump from any style you can imagine.”

R.J. Grunts is where Payne got his start – as a bartender. During the inevitable lulls of morning bar shifts, he found himself looking for something to do, and settled on making illustrations for the chalkboards displaying burger and beer specials. One day, Lettuce founder Rich Melman was at the restaurant for a TV segment. He noticed Payne’s drawings and asked to speak to him.

“I won’t forget this: I was quite hungover,” recalls Payne with a laugh. He was encouraged to submit some of his work.

Although he had gotten a fine arts degree in his native Texas, he had to pull together a portfolio of illustrations, having followed the path of many aspiring artists and found a job in the restaurant industry to pay the bills. Unlike many aspiring artists, his side gig brought him full circle, getting him a full-time job in art. Soon he was sketching swizzle sticks for Three Dots, figures for Windy City Smokeout, and designs for Ramen-san before eventually being hired as an in-house illustrator. 

He didn’t know such a job existed – but it fit him perfectly. “I liked comic books. I like illustration. I like commercial art,” Payne says. “All my professors would be like, ‘It has to have meaning.’ And I’m like, ‘All right, but Superman means something to me.’”

He still loves The Simpsons, sporting pins of characters from the TV show on a baseball cap and drawing Simpsons-style caricatures of each Lettuce creative team member for their Slack icon. (He’s not the only one to join the creative team from a serving job – the creative director Hollembeak also got his foot in the door via a restaurant.)

Payne does miss serving at R.J. Grunts, but he often finds himself sitting on the other side of the bar several times a week, drawing in Procreate on his iPad or in a paper sketchbook. He wears a sort of half-glove over his right hand’s lower fingers and edge to prevent smudges on the tablet while he sketches. Whether at a bar, his office, or even a meeting, he’s frequently doodling – it helps him concentrate and alleviates social anxiety.

When he’s given a project, he draws numerous iterations of the requested item in various styles, within constraints that align with the overall design of a restaurant or brand. For Crying Tiger, the upcoming Southeast Asian restaurant from Lettuce and Thai Dang of HaiSous, he was asked to come up with a logo featuring the titular animal inspired by traditional Thai illustrations and tattoos. Working from artboards of images the restaurant partners liked, he sketched some 20 different options, from highly stylized versions like one with the tiger curving over its back to bite its tail to starker ones with it leaping horizontally.

The creative team discussed each option, leaving Payne to focus in on a few possibilities and offer up more iterations. Not only did the logo need to be engaging and representative of the restaurant; it also had to be scalable, legible on everything from a business card to a billboard.

The final version shows the tiger head-on with a tear under one eye and its front half lower than its back, as though it were about to spring off a flight of stairs.

Having an in-house illustrator like Payne – along with an architect, interior designers, graphic designers, and numerous other members of a creative team – allows Lettuce to create a cohesive vision for each new restaurant. Plates, furniture, and centerpieces align with advertising, merchandise, and, of course, the food itself. 

"So much of what we try to do in the restaurants is story-tell," emails Amarit Dulyapaibul, managing partner for numerous Lettuce restaurants. "A big piece of that is through illustrations that give a brand its personality. And no one does that better than Alex." 

The never-ending stream of assignments also helps keep Payne doing art, as he loves, without letting his worries about its worth and perfection get in the way – there’s always a deadline around the corner. He’s constantly practicing his drawing – it’s his job – and therefore always improving. “In a weird way, it’s nice to be forced to do it, because of my own anxiety,” he says.

The idle sketching he has always done to alleviate some social anxiety continues to help him deal with anxiety – and has also become a paying job.