NEW YORK – Known globally for its beverages, PepsiCo is making a move into the restaurant business with Kola House, “a restaurant-bar-event space that the company hopes will be both social hub and testing ground for new products,” reports The New York Times.

"This isn't a pop-up," Seth Kaufman, PepsiCo's chief marketing officer for beverages in North America, told the news source, adding the goal is for customers to have a “premium experience.” Instead of an iconic Pepsi logo and Pepsi products, Kola House will focus on the kola nut. “Essentially, Pepsi is trying to market its product without marketing its product,” writes the news source. 

Kola House is being designed for the social media age, where customers will talk about the restaurant and their experience on the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

"People consume content with a speed that we've never experienced before," Mauro Porcini, head of design for PepsiCo, told the news source. "That's why, to be relevant online in these conversations, these companies need to activate offline in the best possible way."

Although the plan is to open by springtime, the final details of Kola House are still in the works, including a menu and executive chef. To get the project up and running, PepsiCo teamed up with Lenny Kravitz's design firm, Kravitz Design, and The Metric, a club below the Kola House space. Alex Ott, a well-known bartender, will create the cocktails, notes the news source.

"We are in a time where we have to transform how we connect with and engage consumers," Kaufman said. "If brands don't do that today, they will be irrelevant tomorrow, whatever tomorrow is."