My passion for operational development means I assist both companies and non-profits in creative solutions for fundraising, change management, governance implementation, workflow development, and team coordination. I'm a proven team leader with leadership accolades, who enjoys guiding all teams towards their best. Employees appreciate my willingness to collaborate, while executive suites and boards appreciate my attention to detail and soft skills in navigating their company cultures. Please check out my case study written after assisting a local $2 million company in their 10 year renovations!
Serrano's is a $2+ million dollar restaurant establishment with multiple venues throughout San Diego in need of re-branding and renovation after ten years of service. The international owner desired a fresh urban environment for late night fun, with culturally relevant murals throughout the entire venue. The first phase of renovations took six weeks and focused on the front dining room of the Coronado venue; an area of 5,000 sq ft with an attached external open air dining room.
This section of the establishment hosted live bands every week with prospective diners invited in by the entertainment. After interviewing the bands, we created stage lighting and black-light reactive design elements within all murals and venue designs for an attractive and consistent eye-catching brand that catered to different demographics. The design team alternated weekly between in-person venue construction and remote graphic design to ensure the project timeline kept within budget and on time. The graphic deliverables included developing the new workflow processes with bi-lingual paperwork, a catering menu trifold, and a promo flier for local distribution. The trifold debuted the new branding and black light designs complemented the venue murals; garnering instant feedback in appreciation.
With an audit of the Coronado venue to determine the full project scope and budget for the renovation, I highlighted multiple ADA and Fire Safety discrepancies in the VIP room to executive management and immediately prompted on-site employees to mitigate the future violations. We established approval for custom built décor to ameliorate the crowd control issues the company faced in the newest location. The accessibility and privacy improvements in the VIP room created a cheerful buy-in for both staff and management for further design suggestions and venue improvements in the following weeks.
When the first phase of venue design initiated, I coordinated the venue employee & design team schedules to ensure safety standards were met regarding air quality and venue safety for all employees. While supervising the ongoing venue changes, I also assisted the design team with mural creation and processed purchase orders with management in weekly executive briefs.
When the first phase of venue design initiated, I coordinated the venue employee & design team schedules to ensure safety standards were met regarding air quality and venue safety for all employees. While supervising the ongoing venue changes, I also assisted the design team with mural creation and processed purchase orders with management in weekly executive briefs.
Phase One of the venue updates now complete, we collaborated with Telemundo & NBC7 for an international ad campaign. The campaign ran for 7 weeks, airing from Las Vegas to Rosarito MX to increase brand awareness towards international tourists visiting the US West Coast. Once I analyzed the consumer impressions throughout their digital presence, I shared my findings with executive management. I emphasized the ad campaign as an opportunity to bottle and market their 'World Famous Salsas' for additional company revenue. Within two weeks the venue was consistently filled to 80% capacity every night, with newly created revenue for in-house salsas.
See the completed ad below!
The company lacked a long term strategy for marketing and venue entertainment, while also suffering the recent walk-out of their head chef and marketing director.
My initial proposal centered cultural tourism as a long term operational strategy. As the only authentic Mexican venue in their Coronado location, Serrano's had a unique opportunity to culturally educate their tourists with a curated menu reflecting seasonal indigenous recipes and California ingredients. With the economic shifts, a seasonal menu can soften overhead costs during an economic slump without compromising taste.
Please see below for the prix fixe Christmas recipes & design!
With a blend of Californian produce and Mexican culture, we created a delicious pop-up experience for tourists both in-person & catered to-go. By branding the bar coasters and merchandise to reflect the seasonal shifts, we encourage repeat customers to plan additional visits throughout the year to collect more designs and try additional recipes. The food was an instant hit too!
Please see below for the prix fixe Christmas recipes & design!
With a blend of Californian produce and Mexican culture, we created a delicious pop-up experience for tourists both in-person & catered to-go. By branding the bar coasters and merchandise to reflect the seasonal shifts, we encourage repeat customers to plan additional visits throughout the year to collect more designs and try additional recipes. The food was an instant hit too!
The restaurants' emphasis on Chicano traditions and cultures throughout the venue ensured community appreciation for the thoughtful merchandise the creative department presented Serrano's executive management. The merchandise featured new designs every other month with each mural finished and digitally processed into tourist shirts, meant to complement the future salsa label designs.
Risk Management Challenges
With complex multi-phase projects, there are always problems and sudden surprises. In this particular project there were multiple issues with employees. In the end, the project risk was not mine to mitigate, but rather the owners. Halfway through the project I found out the head chef left and management felt it was unnecessary to replace them.
With the head chef gone, I researched cultural recipes that best fit with the current level of skill in the kitchen staff. After discussing the fiscal impacts, management approved the recipe concepts and also added additional "Mexi-Fusion" Sushi. Once I compiled a list for each dietary need - vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian, and also gluten free desserts - I worked with employees to test and develop the commercial recipes. While I am not an executive chef, I do have experience in staging and recipe development for chefs and food influencers; with a professional palate as a result. By fostering ownership of quality control in the new recipes, the kitchen staff were enthusiastic about the new changes to their workflow.
Executive management went to their neighbor, a Michelin star sushi venue, and announced that Serrano's is now direct competition for their sushi sales & customer loyalty during their busiest hour. Despite prior multiple meetings documenting how these actions and sushi additions would destroy the local brand loyalty with needless direct comparisons in quality and taste - the general manager felt it was important to heckle the competition for reasons not shared with the creative team. Since management did not reside in the US, they were not cognizant to the local expectations regarding premium sushi quality and expertise; especially in California, neighboring a leading expert in tasteful tourism. Multiple HR violations from the same manager were noted during the R&D collaborations between the kitchen & creative teams for new recipes. When I followed up with the owner regarding these non-compliance violations, he made it clear he preferred their management style. This interaction led the creative team to pursue new employment, much like the marketing and head chef did too.
Ultimately I would have loved to continue the position but the owner decided it was best to close the establishment due to economic struggles San Diego presented in 2023. Incidentally, after the last meeting we held, I walked past a couple deciding where to eat and overheard them say, "..if I want sushi, I'd rather eat GOOD sushi" as they walked into a different venue. World famous salsas, in my experience, does not translate to world famous sushi without a head chef.