Owner & Founder
Brian Howard
20 years in hospitality. 10 venues. 200+ original cocktails. Three cities. Now building the system that packages everything I know into technology any operator can deploy.
Years in Hospitality
20+
Venues Built or Consulted
10+
Original Cocktails Created
200+
Cities (Chicago, New Orleans, SF)
3
The Story
Built Behind
the Bar.
I started behind the bar in Chicago. Not cocktail bars with $18 drinks and dress codes. Dive bars with $4 wells and regulars who knew your name. That's where you learn to read a room, manage chaos, and make everyone feel like they belong.
From there, The Drawing Room. A cocktail lounge that went from unknown to nationally recognized in under two years. Top 6 at Tales of the Cocktail in 2010, competing against The Varnish in LA, Rickhouse in SF, and Drink in Boston. Cocktail Lounge of the Year from Nightclub & Bar Magazine. Condé Nast Traveler wrote it up. So did TimeOut, NBC Chicago, and StarChefs.
Restaurant August in New Orleans came next. John Besh's flagship. Fine dining at the highest level. I learned what it means to run a program where every detail is non-negotiable. Then San Francisco, where the real evolution started.
Hojoko. August 1-Five as Managing Partner. Cityscape at the Hilton Union Square. Consulting for Berber, Shinmai, The Salt, Ettan, and others. Each venue was a different puzzle. Different concept, different P&L, different staff, different neighborhood. That pattern recognition is what Liquid Chef Consulting is built on.
Now I'm building Barbary Belle at 653 Commercial Street, and turning everything I know into BarbaryCoastOS. The consulting gets you open. The platform keeps you running.
Career
The Timeline
Bartender & Bar Manager
Chicago Dive Bars & Cocktail Bars
Built the foundation. High-volume service, cash management, and learning to read a room from behind the well.
Head Bartender & Program Director
The Drawing Room
Built the cocktail program from scratch. Top 6 at Tales of the Cocktail 2010. Cocktail Lounge of the Year. Condé Nast Traveler, TimeOut, NBC Chicago, StarChefs.
Beverage Director
Restaurant August (John Besh)
Fine dining flagship. Learned precision, service standards, and what non-negotiable quality actually means in a kitchen-driven house.
Beverage Director
Hojoko (The Verb Hotel)
Japanese izakaya concept. Built the sake, shochu, and cocktail program. Cross-cultural menu development and vendor relationships.
Managing Partner
August 1-Five
Full P&L ownership. Cocktail bar with food program. Hired and trained Jordan White (now BB Managing Partner). Built the operational playbook that became LCC.
Director of Beverage
Cityscape (Hilton Union Square)
46th floor. Hotel F&B at scale. 500+ covers, banquet service, corporate events. Enterprise-level operations and vendor management.
Consulting
Berber, Shinmai, The Salt, Ettan
Independent consulting across 4+ venues. Menu engineering, pour cost optimization, staff training, vendor renegotiation. Each engagement refined the LCC methodology.
Owner & Founder
Liquid Chef Consulting + Barbary Belle
Building LCC as a full consulting firm. Barbary Belle at 653 Commercial as the live proof of concept. BarbaryCoastOS as the AI platform that scales it all.
Recognition
The Work Speaks.
Competition
Tales of the Cocktail
Top 6 Nationally, 2010
“Bar Room Brawl” competition. Peers: The Varnish (LA), Rickhouse (SF), Drink (Boston), Clover Club (NYC).
Industry
Cocktail Lounge of the Year
Nightclub & Bar Magazine, 2010
National recognition for The Drawing Room. Program design, guest experience, and operational excellence.
Media
Press & Features
National Coverage
Condé Nast Traveler, TimeOut, NBC Chicago, StarChefs. Programs that earned attention, not press releases that bought it.
Philosophy
Build the System,
Not Just the Bar.
Most restaurant consultants give you a binder and wish you luck. I build the infrastructure. The SOPs. The training systems. The financial models. The technology stack. And then I stay.
That's the difference. Liquid Chef Consulting isn't a service company. It's an operating system. Barbary Belle is where I prove it works. Your venue is where I deploy it.