1 / 9 Charleston Distilling, Charleston, S.C.: Restrooms designed as giant wooden barrels. ( / Cintas) 2 / 9 Fitton Center for Creative Arts, Hamilton, Ohio: An homage to nature using handmade tiles. ( / Cintas) 3 / 9 Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati: Nursing suite that includes gliders, changing stations, a kitchentte, ice, refrigeration lockers and flat screen TVs. ( / Cintas) 4 / 9 Minturn, Colo., public restrooms: The entrance resembles an adit -- horizontal passageway -- into a mine. ( / Cintas) 5 / 9 Music Hall, Portsmouth, N.H.: Gaudi, Tiffany, Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter inspired a fantasy forest theme. ( / Cintas) 6 / 9 OB Warehouse, San Diego: The Ocean Beach restaurant carries over its industrial warehouse theme into its restrooms. ( / Cintas) 7 / 9 Perry Lakes Park, Marion, Ark.: A 50-foot-tall “Tall Toilet” restroom is one of three unique restrooms set in the park. ( / Cintas) 8 / 9 Strataca, Hutchinson, Kans.: A salt-mine museum includes a restroom carved out of the stratified salt bed 650 feet below ground. ( / Cintas) 9 / 9 The Salty Pig restaurant, Boston: “Far Side” comic strips are plastered on the restroom walls. ( / Cintas)

The OB Warehouse restaurant prides itself on its “eclectic global cuisine and vintage decor.

Now, the Cohn Restaurant Group’s eatery in Ocean Beach can add another bragging point: One of 10 finalists in the 14th annual “America’s Best Restroom Contest.”

Sponsored by the Cincinnati-based Cintas uniform and supply company, the contest aims to celebrate the cleanliness and design of the place we all visit to powder our nose, straighten our tie or attend to other duties.


“We were looking for a creative way to showcase Cintas and our bathroom products and highlight creative restrooms,” said Cintas spokesman Danny Rubin. “It’s smart business to have a creative bathroom.”

The mirrors in the women’s restroom had to be secured by bolts to keep patrons from taking them as souvenirs. ( / Cohn Restaurant Group)

The OB Warehouse is the first San Diego business to make it into the finals, Rubin said, and restaurant manager Yami Bryan said she’s not surprised. Since its opening a year ago at 4839 Newport Ave., the restrooms have generated as much buzz as the crispy artichokes, banh mi pork belly flatbread and Making Whoopie pie.

“In my experience, I’ve never given tours of restrooms,” she said. “But since we began, the ladies always want to see the men’s restroom. They go back to the table and tell how cool it is.”


In this week’s finalists announcement, headlined “Let the ‘Bowl Games’ Begin,” Cintras praised the restrooms as a seamless blending of vintage artifacts and modern, industrial design.

“The OB Warehouse restrooms are a sight to behold with retro, handheld vintage mirrors, oil cans and tools like a vintage plumber pipe, a wrench and metal letter stamps which read ‘OB Warehouse’ over the men’s urinal,” Cintas said. “Many of the items are encased in glass behind large concrete sinks.”

Restaurant designer Philippe Beltran said restrooms should never be considered an afterthought but an integral part of any building.

“When you look at the bathroom, it’s another room you discover,” Beltran said. “It’s like a hidden gem.”


He said turning a standard $15,000 commercial restroom into a thing of beauty and buzz costs only about $5,000 more. He’s surprised by the public response at the OB Warehouse.

“You have no idea how many texts I get - ‘I’m in the bathroom - it’s awesome,’” he said.

The restaurant faces some tough competition in this year’s contest.

The Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati offers a nursing suite, complete with kitchenette, lockers for storing items and flat screen TVs so moms won’t miss a moment of the game. The Strataca salt mine museum in Hutchinson, Kans., is located 650 feet below ground, carved out of a stratified salt bed. The Salty Pig restaurant in Boston plastered its restroom walls with “Far Side” comic strips. The Music Hall in Portsmouth, N.H., created a fantasy forest of cast bronze trees, branches and vines, gilded Corinthian columns and velvet settees.


The finalists were drawn from about 35 nominees collected by Cintas staff and proposed by the public. The winner, who will receive $2,500 in Cintas product credits, will be chosen via online voting through Oct. 31 at the contest website, bestrestroom.com. Additional background is available at its , facebook.com/BestRestroom page. The second and third place winners will also win Cintas credits.

Bryan said her staff is spreading the word through their own social networks and on the restaurant website. They’re encouraging patrons and all of San Diego to vote for OB Warehouse.

“I’ve never been at a place where people take pictures of the restrooms, but here it’s quite normal,” she said. “I giggle about it.”

As for Beltran, he’s mulling over the best restroom ever that he can imagine: one that displays tiny vintage statues of the Buddha and other figures -- “a tour of the world in the bathroom.”

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