When’s the Right Time to Call in a Restaurant Consultant?
Photo Caption: L.A.'s Haden had all the pieces of a successful restaurant, but called in a consultant to re-shuffle them when it mattered. Hayden
Skift Take
Admitting you need outside help is never easy for a chef or restaurateur, especially within the first year of business. But with the right advice and guidance from a trusted source, the payoffs were huge for one small Los Angeles restaurant.
When chef Ari Kolender opened his Los Angeles-area restaurant, Hayden, he got a lot of great buzz. The space had a cool vibe, he was devoted to locally grown ingredients from Southern California, and there was an excellent wine list for sip-happy customers. Still, Kolender knew there were things that needed work. What he didn’t anticipate was having to do a major overhaul within the first year, and that he’d need outside help to do it.
“I didn’t open Hayden thinking this is a masterpiece, everything is in its place,” said Kolender. “We had a great space and a bare-bones budget. We were happy where we were, the food and wine programming was where I wanted it, it was good enough to open. But we knew it would be a progression.”
When it debuted in July 2017, Hayden seemingly had everything going for it. The casual cafe and wine bar anchors a corner of Platform, a slick urban mixed-use complex in the burgeoning Hayden Tracht neighborhood of Culver City, walking distance from
