We continue our conversation with Adam Weisblatt, who is a principle in Last Word Hospitality, a consulting firm with a healthy list of high-profile restaurant clients.
In 2015, at the tender age of 30, Adam teamed with Holly Fox, formerly a project manager at entertainment group SBE. Since then, the two have helped consult on all aspects of the successful launching and running of restaurants, bars and other businesses. This means soup to nuts: from establishing occupancy all the way to the by-the-glass wine list.
But their ambitions extend much further. In 2016, they entered into a management agreement with a faded Thai restaurant, Rambutan in Silver Lake. Their work included a rebrand as Same Same Thai, a new look, a new beverage program and radically improved sales. Next was Found Oyster in East Hollywood, a smart take on an east-coast oyster bar which has been up and running since November 2019. So far, it has exceeded business expectations and is a worthy visit (this is a personal recommendation). And there are aggressive plans for more restaurants according to a template that Adam shares with us.
To top it off, Last Word runs an ‘academy’ a few days a month in L.A. and San Francisco in the form of workshops devoted to providing the tools to future managers and operators in the restaurant/bar industry. Both ‘soft’ skills such as personnel management strategies and ‘hard’ skills such as negociating a lease might be subjects of instruction. Adam states that there is no true intellectual property in hospitality. LWH is seeking to broaden this program to compete with college-level hospitality curriculums one imagines. Adam’s advice to those aspiring to entrepreneurship: go learn how the business works as an employee and when you are ready to take the next step to management or ownership, take advantage of their instruction, which for the time being, is free.
In the second part lf our interview with Adam, we move specifically toward the beverage program: how it is assembled and its specific role in the success of a hospitality business. Then Adam outlines his vision for the ‘academy’ and we talk about future plans that synergize consulting, education and upcoming LWH hospitality ventures.