Karen founded Culinary Options consultancy in 1997 after departing Starbucks where she had been Food, Beverage and Menu Development Director. Prior to that time, she had been vice-president of Food, Beverage and Product Development for Larry’s Markets, an upscale multi-unit supermarket in Seattle, WA. For six years prior to that Karen was Senior Director of concept and menu development for Satisfaction Guaranteed Eateries, a multiunit restaurant group in Seattle, WA. Her efforts led to the development of concepts and menus for four new locations as well as and the reengineering of three legacy operations.
Karen’s earliest foray into the foodservice world, after shifting her career from psychiatric social work to food, was establishing one of the first cooking schools in Seattle, which later also provided highly reputed catering services. During that time, she wrote a weekly food column for the Seattle Times and co-founded of the Northwest Culinary Alliance.
Karen’s consulting approach is based on this pyramid of fundamental principles:
All her development work begins with the initial Visioning. In these sessions client goal clarity is illuminated by all the stakeholders of the project. From that clarity a fully articulated concept is created. The menu follows, as it is through the menu composition that a concept is brought to life. Karen’s passion for global flavors and intrinsically healthful cultural cuisines drives her product development. Food done right is her mantra.
Karen has received the Excellence in Management Advisory Services from the Foodservice Consultants Society International, Top Achiever Consultant of the year from Foodservice Equipment & Supplies and the Industry Service Award from Restaurant Equipment Reports. She been a featured speaker at multiple foodservice industry conferences, chaired FCSI’s Council for Professional Standards for six years and contributes articles frequently to various foodservice publications.
Karen’s earliest foray into the foodservice world, after shifting her career from psychiatric social work to food, was establishing one of the first cooking schools in Seattle, which later also provided highly reputed catering services. During that time, she wrote a weekly food column for the Seattle Times and co-founded of the Northwest Culinary Alliance.
Karen’s consulting approach is based on this pyramid of fundamental principles:
All her development work begins with the initial Visioning. In these sessions client goal clarity is illuminated by all the stakeholders of the project. From that clarity a fully articulated concept is created. The menu follows, as it is through the menu composition that a concept is brought to life. Karen’s passion for global flavors and intrinsically healthful cultural cuisines drives her product development. Food done right is her mantra.
Karen has received the Excellence in Management Advisory Services from the Foodservice Consultants Society International, Top Achiever Consultant of the year from Foodservice Equipment & Supplies and the Industry Service Award from Restaurant Equipment Reports. She been a featured speaker at multiple foodservice industry conferences, chaired FCSI’s Council for Professional Standards for six years and contributes articles frequently to various foodservice publications.
Karen’s earliest foray into the foodservice world, after shifting her career from psychiatric social work to food, was establishing one of the first cooking schools in Seattle, which later also provided highly reputed catering services. During that time, she wrote a weekly food column for the Seattle Times and co-founded of the Northwest Culinary Alliance.
Karen’s consulting approach is based on this pyramid of fundamental principles:
All her development work begins with the initial Visioning. In these sessions client goal clarity is illuminated by all the stakeholders of the project. From that clarity a fully articulated concept is created. The menu follows, as it is through the menu composition that a concept is brought to life. Karen’s passion for global flavors and intrinsically healthful cultural cuisines drives her product development. Food done right is her mantra.
Karen has received the Excellence in Management Advisory Services from the Foodservice Consultants Society International, Top Achiever Consultant of the year from Foodservice Equipment & Supplies and the Industry Service Award from Restaurant Equipment Reports. She been a featured speaker at multiple foodservice industry conferences, chaired FCSI’s Council for Professional Standards for six years and contributes articles frequently to various foodservice publications.
Consultant of the Year
Food Equipment Reports
Service Award (Consultant of the Year)
Food Consultants Society International
Best Article by a Consultant
Food Consultants Society International
Award for Excellence (Project of the Year)
Food Consultants Society International
Best Article by a Consultant
Food Consultants Society International
Designated National Food Treasure
Food Writers of America
When Amazon executive leaders realized the mammoth task that lied ahead for them to feed nearly 50,000 employees, they realized that a team of consultants was required to help them develop a master plan for foodservice. They wanted to digress from the classic corporate campus “cafeteria thinking” and create discreet, fully articulated Fast Casual concepts within the secure spaces of their three newest 37-story buildings, as well as reinvent foodservice in three existing buildings. My role was to research the Fast Casual category and present fully articulated concepts from which they could choose. I presented 47 Fast Casual Concepts, with narratives, pictures, operational descriptions and prototype menus for each. From these 47, they have so far selected 27 which are being built.
Collaborated with Russ Benson, DayOne Hospitality, as part of an RFP process, to analyze the current operations at headquarters in Silicon Valley and San Francisco from a menu, concept and quality standpoint that would further inform the content of the RFP. The same consultant and I were then hired to conduct a deep dive into technological solutions for their current operations as well as that of a soon-to-be large
Was hired, along with Russ Benson, DayOne Hospitality and Laura Lentz, Culinary Advisors, to create an intensive workshop for the foodservice program managers at the AOC covering elements ranging from visioning, to concept development to operational feasibility and design. We were then asked to analyze all existing operations to both assist the AOC in developing an entirely new “way of being” (anti-cafeteria) as well as contribute to the Master Planning process and RFP process.
As a result of totally redesigning the entire campus and hiring respected architects from other countries to design spectacular buildings, the executive leaders wanted to do something dramatically different with foodservice on this corporate campus. They wanted a restaurant expert on the foodservice planning team in addition to those who historically had worked only with corporate dining. I was hired (referred by Coburn & Guyette Kitchen Designers & Foodservice Consultants in Boston) to assist in the development of three fully articulated restaurant concepts for each of the new buildings: concept, menu, equipment requirements, operational flow and design personality for each. Detailed documents were created which then allowed the architects and kitchen designers to have a road map. I then assisted in the RFP process for finding outside restaurateurs to operate the restaurants, interviewing them and participating in the ultimate operator choices.
Sentry headquarters in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, was in the midst of a total cafeteria remodel. They did not want to rely on their foodservice operator to determine their future for them, so I was hired to frame the conceptual approach to the food in the cafeteria, develop prototype menus for each station, help select merchandising and tabletop decor that was congruent with the concept and liaise with the existing operator to assure that the vision held by the thought leaders was executed according to the master plan.
HCSC (Health Care Service Corporation, a Mutual Legal Reserve Company)
The foodservice program leaders requested a thorough analysis of their menus and sales reports in order to develop forward-thinking strategies based on my study and resulting recommendations. HCSC has multiple locations around the United States.