Building a Restaurant Group With More Than One Project at a Time
Skift Take
Chefs moving into hotel restaurants aren’t tying themselves to one huge company but instead wielding influence in a number of different places. Here’s how L.A.’s Casey Lane handles several projects simultaneously while keeping his own brand intact.
When chef Casey Lane took on two hotel restaurant projects in Los Angeles, he didn’t know they’d open within a few months of each other. He first signed on to oversee the food and beverage program for La Peer, a new Kimpton property in West Hollywood, which was supposed to open in 2015. A second unrelated project, which included two restaurants at the historic Hotel Figueroa downtown, was tracking to debut in 2016. Both projects got hit with massive delays and ended up opening within a month of each other in 2018.
Lane’s From Scratch Hospitality group had to simultaneously conceptualize, plan, staff, train and oversee dining operations for three different restaurants, several bar menus, room service, catering and banquets at both properties. That’s on top of running two popular independent eateries on both coasts, The Tasting Kitchen in Venice, California, and Casa Apicii in New York. “Honestly, I would not want to do that again,” he now says with a chuckle.
Lane always s
