Brown Sugar Kitchen on Broadway

One of the greatest pleasures for me as a business owner has been being in a position to empower women. My interior design business is staffed by women, and often I refer work to highly-skilled women contractors, artisans, and artists, in the process of developing and executing interior design projects. While seeing a woman at the top of an interior design firm may not feel surprising, women at the helm in the trades and at the workbenches, that is still less common.

Similarly, many women have ascended the ranks in the culinary industry, as chefs and restaurateurs, and yet, percentage-wise, this is still a fairly new phenomenon.

So, you can understand how much I have personally enjoyed designing for and becoming dear friends with superstar local chef Tanya Holland, as we created the perfect space for her new flagship location of her restaurant, Brown Sugar Kitchen, on Broadway in Oakland. For me, Tanya is an expander. She is someone who shows me in a new way, what is possible. She inspires me with her drive, her strength, and her passion. We have had so much fun together bringing her vision forward, realizing her dream design.