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Earlier than there have been traces out the door, Alexandra Lourdes and Steve Jerome have been simply attempting to unravel completely different issues.
Lourdes, then a Ph.D. scholar at UNLV, had began collaborating on campus occasions along with her pal Lin Smith Jerome, who was married to Jerome and would quickly change into her closest artistic companion.
On the time, Jerome was working a high-end steakhouse and wanted to spice up foot site visitors. He requested Lourdes and Smith Jerome to prepare a contented hour on the restaurant. The occasion packed the patio, and it lit a spark for a brand new enterprise.
The comfortable hour labored so properly that the restaurant wished extra — weekly occasions, full-on advertising assist, an actual partnership. There was only one problem: Lourdes and Smith Jerome did not technically have an organization. So that they made one. That evening, Smith Jerome filed the LLC paperwork. Lourdes mocked up a brand on the eating room desk. Abruptly, they have been within the restaurant advertising world, prioritizing storytelling, group and in-person power over conventional advertisements. What began as a one-off collaboration shortly grew to become The Refined Company — and finally, the muse for Refined Hospitality Group.
Bouncing from espresso store to espresso store with their laptops, Lourdes and Smith Jerome finally thought, Why not simply create one we really like working in? They introduced Jerome in as a companion, and their concept grew to become Café Lola: half artistic hub, half espresso store and the primary idea the three of them constructed collectively.
Constructing on that momentum, they launched Saint Honoré — a boutique doughnut store tucked right into a hard-to-find car parking zone, the place they embellished pastries by hand and hoped somebody would are available in.
“We have been throwing extra doughnuts away than we have been promoting,” Jerome says. “One buyer would trickle in. That was it.”
Lourdes determined to doc what life seemed like as a small enterprise proprietor. “I ended up doing a day-in-the-life , and I simply began filming every thing I used to be doing, adorning doughnuts, and that video blew as much as like one million views,” she says. “Swiftly, I grew to become a storyteller.”
Lourdes has since grown her viewers to greater than one million followers on Instagram and a couple of.5 million on TikTok.
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Constructed completely different, constructed collectively
Jerome would be the first to inform you he is not on social media. He prefers to let the meals and hospitality converse for themselves. However he additionally is aware of the facility of what Lourdes does with a telephone and a story.
“She brings folks in. I attempt to preserve them coming again,” he says.
That line is not only a catchphrase. It is how Refined Restaurant Group works. Lourdes leads content material and group, drawing audiences by way of genuine storytelling. Jerome handles operations, high quality and visitor expertise. They do not compete for a similar function. They complement one another in each one.
That readability has allowed them to remain small, quick and deeply linked to their company. Refined would not want company approval to pivot. If a menu merchandise is not resonating or a buyer remark surfaces one thing new, they’ll modify the identical day. New concepts come from workers, followers and generally their very own youngsters. The hole between concept and execution is commonly simply 24 hours.
The crew’s agility exhibits within the ideas they’ve constructed: 5 Café Lola areas, two Saint Honoré outlets (additionally dwelling to their pizza spinoff, Pizza Nameless), the fried hen model 3 Little Chicks, and two full-service eating places, Sorellina and Emilio’s, every a tribute to their households. What ties all of it collectively is not a delicacies. It is a perspective.
They care about high quality. They care about pace. They usually care concerning the folks on either side of the counter.
What began as a contented hour experiment and a quiet doughnut store has change into a mannequin for how one can construct one thing greater with out shedding your voice. They did not simply develop a restaurant group. They constructed belief, one story at a time.
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Earlier than there have been traces out the door, Alexandra Lourdes and Steve Jerome have been simply attempting to unravel completely different issues.
Lourdes, then a Ph.D. scholar at UNLV, had began collaborating on campus occasions along with her pal Lin Smith Jerome, who was married to Jerome and would quickly change into her closest artistic companion.
On the time, Jerome was working a high-end steakhouse and wanted to spice up foot site visitors. He requested Lourdes and Smith Jerome to prepare a contented hour on the restaurant. The occasion packed the patio, and it lit a spark for a brand new enterprise.
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