Left Bank’s Levine shakes up management after closuresLeft Bank’s Levine shakes up management after closures

Alan Liddle

Vine Dining Enterprises Inc. of Corte Madera, Calif., July 3 said it had reorganized its executive team just weeks after two of its five trademark Left Bank brasserie restaurants were shuttered.

That company controls the name and trade dress of the 15-year-old Left Bank brasserie concept. It licenses them to the limited liability partnerships that own individual Left Bank restaurants, and contracts to provide management support, as well.

What a difference nine months can make.

When I spoke with Vine Dining chairman Edward Levine in October, he had just hired Pat Kuleto Restaurants veteran Richard Miyashiro to succeed him as VDE’s chief executive and president. The idea was that the Miyashiro hire would free Levine up to spend more time on his Vine Solutions Inc. restaurant finance consultancy.

Left Bank units in the San Francisco Bay Area cities of San Mateo and Pleasant Hill were closed June 22. Vine Dining officials said those restaurants were “victims of the severe recession.”

In July, Levine said he had resumed his role as CEO following Miyashiro’s resignation. Vine Dining sources also noted that Thomas Bunker had been hired as chief operations officer. Bunker earlier had spent nine years with the company and was its vice president of restaurant development when he left about five years ago to become a consultant.

Apart from its affiliation with Left Bank, Vine Dining also is involved in LB Steak, “a modern American steakhouse with a French twist,” which it opened last month in San Jose. LB Steak is in the space previously occupied by another VDE-engineered concept, Tanglewood, a high-end American cuisine restaurant.

“Richard was instrumental in the development of the recently opened LB Steak,” Levine said of the now departed Miyashiro. “In addition, he has worked to shift the management of the Left Bank Brasserie restaurants towards a more entrepreneurial, guest-focused spirit.”

In October, Levine, the consultant, said he was advising his clients that the recession was going to hit the industry harder than most imagined. He said he told them that in the months ahead “cash would be king” and should be conserved as much as is possible.

It is never easy closing restaurants or shaking up management from brand marketing, landlord, personnel and personal relationship standpoints. But the recent actions by Vine Dining Enterprises suggest that Edward Levine, the operator, believes he should follow the advice of Edward Levine, the consultant. Time, ultimately, will be the best judge of whether both Levines made the right call. — [email protected]