PINAMAR (Special Envoy).- From the sidewalk of Constitución Avenue, in the old center of this city, the first thing you see are the walls covered in paintings and an open kitchen in front. Inside, while hamburgers are being prepared on the grill, a figure is repeated in the illustrations: a red boy, drawn in the style of 1950s comics. It is the “Bro”, the mascot that identifies Hey Bro, the hamburger restaurant that opened its second branch last December and that today is one of the most visible bets of the season.
“We wanted it to not only be a gastronomic experience in terms of the bite, but from the moment you enter the premises you enter a world“, explains to THE NATION Valentina Roberto, manager and project manager of the brand. “Let the background music be from the time, let the first thing you see be paintings, as if it were a museum.”
Hey Bro wasn’t born that way. The brand started around 2020 in Ostend, as a small store, without a developed visual identity. “It didn’t have a brand identity like the one we have today, but it did have a very marked identity in the product“says Roberto. From the outside, the place did not attract attention. “It was a black and white place, and you didn’t want to go in, but once you tried the burger there was no turning back”.
In the middle of the pandemic, two brothers — textile businessmen — visited that place and were shocked by the experience. “They said all the time: this has to be in the Capital,” remembers Roberto. At that time they did not have the capital to invest, but the idea was installed. Years later, after several meetings and changes in the partners’ financial situation, those two brothers and a third investor joined the project. This is how the group of four partners that today manages the brand was formed.
“There we had the brand, we had the star product, but we needed to give it a twist,” explains Roberto. The context was not simple: “Capital Federal was already invaded by hamburger restaurants with strong names, with very marked aesthetics and with menus that were difficult to match.”
The decision was not to compete on the same path. “What we came up with was take it to a 50s aesthetic“he says. The idea was to build a comprehensive experience. “We didn’t want it to just be eating a hamburger. “We wanted the client to immerse themselves in a world.”
That universe was built based on a very precise visual identity. The music, the colors, the paintings and the “mascot” are part of the same concept. “We wanted to create a kind of character that represents us, which is the red baby,” he explains. “A naughty boy, the one who appears in the paintings, the one who makes jokes.”
The creative process was long. “Iconically, the character of the time is that of Mad , which we loved, but we couldn’t use it due to copyright,” says Roberto. The marketing team worked for months on sketches until reaching the final design. “We wanted it to look hand-drawn, with soft lines and matte colors, like comics from the 1950s.”
The brand redesign began in November 2024 and was completed only last June. “There we said: we did it”account. In addition to the character, a color palette was defined that includes red, yellow, orange and blue, all associated with the period aesthetic.
With that identity ready, Hey Bro opened its first location under this new image on September 21, in Caballito, on José Bonifacio 641. Three months later, the jump to Pinamar arrived.
“It’s a huge bet, and even more so with so little time between one location and the other,” admits Roberto. The Pinamar location involved a high investment, not only in equipment and work, but also in the visual identity: paintings, materials and staging..
“Pinamar is a very strong point to invest in,” he explains. “There are groups of friends, families, people from the Capital who come on vacation. In addition, there are few hamburger restaurants and none have a clear strategy”.
The idea was that those who knew the Caballito location could rediscover the brand on the coast. “It happened to us that clients tell us: ‘I go to Caballito and I love that you are here.’”
The menu is the same in both branches. It includes six burgers with single, double and triple options, all with fries, a vegetarian option, onion rings, nuggets, salads and soft ice cream in cone or sandwich format.
But Pinamar poses a particular challenge: seasonality. “The strong months are December, January and February, and then Easter,” says Roberto. That is why they are already planning to expand the gastronomic proposal. “We want to add American breakfasts and snacks: pancakes, scrambled eggs, apple pie.”
The location of the premises also influences this strategy. It is in the old center of Pinamar, close to banks, schools and shops. “This allows us to also target the resident, not just the tourist”.
As for the team, Caballito’s employees are permanent. Both people from the city and people who come for the season work in Pinamar. “Our two ironworkers live here, so that allows us to have continuity throughout the year,” he explains.
In the future, the plan is to grow. “We have a very great hunger for growth”says Roberto. The ultimate goal is to turn Hey Bro into a brand that can have franchises. “These locations allow us to put together the manual, the processes, the prices. The idea is that we can replicate it later.”
For Roberto, the project also It has a generational dimension. He is part of a team of young partners who not only run Hey Bro, but also other businesses, such as a textile factory and a butcher shop. “I learn a lot from them,” he says. And she points out that many times at her age she is associated with a lack of projects or commitment. “The lazy person can be the 20-year-old or the 40-year-old.”he claims. In his case, he assures that constant work and investment in the country are a form of response. “There is nothing more satisfying than investing in your own country,” he says.
On a day-to-day basis, he explains, the team is in a permanent process of creation, of thinking of new ideas and ways to impress the client, even when that means exposing themselves to criticism for being young or for trying something different. “They criticize you, they tell you that you are copying yourself, that the idea is exhausted,” he admits. But it also describes the other side: families who choose to go out to eat at Hey Bro and return with a smile. “When you ask them how they thought it and they tell you that it is one of the best hamburger restaurants, that’s it, everything is worth it“, he summarizes. That return, he says, is what sustains the desire to continue growing and to continue betting, both in Pinamar and in the rest of the country.
Meanwhile, in Pinamar, the scene continues every day: the kitchen working in plain sight, the paintings occupying the walls and Bro – the red baby – repeating himself in every corner as the face of a brand that seeks to make a place for itself in the gastronomic market with its own identity.
