Today we’d like to introduce you to Lea Newton and Anthony Jacquet.
Lea and Anthony, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
We are a restaurant cafe & bakeshop owned and operated by two chefs – Chef Anthony & Chef Lea. Chef Anthony handles the savory side, and I am the pastry portion! Opening up our first restaurant was a pretty big endeavor for the two of us. I had never even worked in a restaurant! I had gone to culinary school to open up my own cookie and milk delivery company which quickly morphed into custom cakes and dessert buffet catering. Chef Anthony met and married a friend of mine, and we immediately made a connection, having a common passion. Anthony had been in fine dining for his entire career, first at the Getty, and then moving on to Executive Chef for a couple of restaurants of Rick Caruso’s at the Grove. It had always been his desire to own his own restaurant. Chef would order cookies from me for special occasions he had, and then one day, he asked if I wanted to open a restaurant with him.
At this point, I was scared to take the next steps of my business retail, and quite honestly overwhelmed with my business’s growth. I found this to be the best opportunity, because what I lacked in experience, Anthony had! We make a great team. We set out to come up with a business plan and get investors. This took about a year and a half to develop, but we got the money, found the perfect spot, and started the HARDEST WORK OF MY LIFE! (did I mention I was 50!!!!!) Good lord the first two years were the hardest thing I had ever experienced.
Every week was 100 hours plus – there was so much to learn, so much to develop, it was completely overwhelming! In the four years that we have been open, our business has grown year after year. We are busier now than ever, and we have truly come to understand what our community wants from us and that they share in our common values of scratch-made, locally and ethically sourced food. We LOVE what we do, and I think our customers can taste that! Every pastry, every salad dressing every soup is all made in house. In an age where labor cost is extremely high, we refuse to lower our standards – always adhering to our core values. Of course, our dream is to expand and that is the direction we are headed!
Has it been a smooth road?
I think it is a sheer force that got us through the first two years and never giving up. Failure was NEVER an option. Ever… The restaurant business is a business of 1000 tiny details. We had to learn ways to do things more simply and uniformly. We are on a never-ending quest to find better ways to operate – more efficiency, more clarity, more simplicity. It never ever ends. We are on a constant quest for improvement. It is a business that never rests.
In the first couple of years, we had a lot of frustrations about setting up systems. But we are never complacent. Where we struggled, we searched and found partners that had great tools that we implemented. One of these was a restaurant software system that kept track of all of our food costing, and invoices provided labor allotments based on projected sales. These are tools we use to make sure our labor and food costs are in line so we control our prime costs. We gained a few mentors of multi-million dollar companies that invested in us, not with their money, but with their experience, and we took their insight seriously. We set up SOP’s, set boundaries and learned lots of hard lessons.
In the first two years, there were numerous times I wanted to quit. It was so HARD and I couldn’t always see a way out or how to improve – I was just limited by my own experience and knowledge. But I never did – sometimes you just put one foot in front of the other and keep going. (quitting was never an option for Anthony) I had kept a little magazine clipping from Joanne Chang in my journal to reference (she is my pastry chef idol). When she first opened her first restaurant, she had decided to quit after ten months, and her mom told her to just hang in there for a year. And then, things turned around for her. Today she has several restaurants. It was a story of hope and perseverance, and one I could relate to. We got the right staff in place, became more efficient, and slowly things got easier.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Claudine Kitchen & Bakeshop story. Tell us more about the business.
We are a chef-owned business who’s core values are creating great dishes from scratch. Truly, it is what we care about the most – chef-crafted, locally and humanely sourced, organic when possible. We care about the food we put in our bodies and feel that many of the allergies and health problems of today are related to what we eat! Gluten, wheat, nut, dairy intolerance, asthma – these were not common health issues 40 years ago. However, our most valuable and treasured resource is our staff who are in the trenches day in and day out right alongside us. It is our goal to create the best work environment for them and continue to support their growth as we flourish. We have a tremendous amount of gratitude for their hard work and relentlessly follow through, day in and day out.
Every bakery item is baked fresh daily. We don’t save anything for the next day -If anything is left over it is sold in a “Day Old” box. I always feel like our pastries taste homemade because they were just baked that day – JUST like when you bake at home! That’s why homemade always tastes so good! No chemicals or preservatives- just simple ingredients, expertly crafted.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
As the burdens on small businesses continue to rise, like increasing labor costs, taxes, licenses, workers comp, I think it will be more challenging than ever for the small mom and pop to compete with the big corporations. Additionally, the food delivery business will only increase in the coming years – this is very expensive business for restaurants. Some delivery apps can charge up to 30% leaving very little for the restaurant. We are lucky that our in-store business has continued to grow. We see an opportunity to grow in the delivery market as well, but need to manage it carefully.
Contact Info:
- Address: 16350 Ventura Blvd. Suite F
Encino, CA 91436 - Website: www.claudinela.com
- Phone: 818-616-3838
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @claudinekitchen
- Facebook: @claudinekitchenandbakeshop
- Yelp: Claudine Kitchen & Bakeshop
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