Meet Rachel Thomas

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rachel Thomas . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rachel below.

Rachel, thank you so much for joining us and offering your lessons and wisdom for our readers. One of the things we most admire about you is your generosity and so we’d love if you could talk to us about where you think your generosity comes from.

I have been very lucky to have known generous people in sharing their knowledge with me over the years. Mentors have shared stories where someone was generous enough to provide them a leg up. They attribute some of their success to the generosity of someone’s guidance, knowledge and time. I believe it to be an unspoken “pass it forward,” which motivates me to pay it forward when the opportunity presents itself. The support that I have received from these people has been priceless. I believe so much of life is luck. Lucky enough to have support, meet the right folks at the right time etc.
Where I can help someone achieve their goals, I will assist them if I can be of service. Particularly in my industry, many folks are trying to make things happen outside of a career in hospitality. I feel a duty to help them get theirs too. I am a firm subscriber to the phrase “when the tide is high, everyone rises.” Certainly, my success is not dependent on the misfortune of another. Whether it be with making introductions, flushing through an idea, or just being a sound board. Sometimes just the contribution of attention and time, with something so simple you can see people really flourish, and this gives me a sense of purpose.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I’ve had a pretty colorful childhood being born in London & raised in Melbourne until moving to LA in my teens. My mum is Armenian from Iran and our big family lives mostly in Glendale. I never spent more than two years in any given school and became accustomed to constant change. I always had a knack for design and a good eye, this landed me at American Rag when I was twenty. Working with vintage redesign, I curated their vintage goods for their stores. While roller skating at a loft party, I met a production designer, and seized an opportunity to get into set design. Most of my twenties were spent in set decoration and set design for music videos and commercials. I am grateful for this time as I acquired so much technical information and management skills. More importantly, this period trained my eye for special design, custom fabrication and finding my form. Which really is the premise for my hospitality projects and my approach to design.

Ten years in, I didn’t see much opportunity in production for growth, and I desired change. I was toying with opening a bar and during this time I met a girl. We dated, she was a sommelier, and we together opened my first place The Must Wine Bar in DTLA it was 2008. Since then, I have now twenty-two years of experience in production, design, and business. Some of my projects have included establishments Perch, a rooftop destination in Los Angeles, The Must’s second location, a wine bar & restaurant, and Bar Franca, a classy little cocktail joint.

I am currently working on a new hospitality project in DTLA. Once again taking the place down to dirt and building from scratch. It is an exceptionally private event space, club, and venue. I am very excited about this project, as it gives me the space and infrastructure to really spread my creative wings. More importantly, it allows me to facilitate bringing other people’s visions to life, which really utilizes all of my accumulated skills from years past.
This will be a multi dimensional space hosting many art related events, creating a safe space for my LGBTQ community, and the community at large. I believe that especially with nightlife, the safer and more comfortable you feel the more you will let your hair down, relax, let loose and have fun.
Being one of the few female owners in this landscape gives me a unique perspective as to what it means to feel safe and protected. I take great pride in being able to provide this service which is lacking in many establishments.
I am passionate about all things design. Seeing how the spacial composition of hospitality design facilitates behavior and movement. While this pandemic and strike have not been a walk in the park for hospitality, it’s more important than ever to have these social spaces. I am proud to be a part of this whole basket of bananas that makes for a city.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

This may sound cliche but not giving up, having the patience and grit to trust the process. Everyone has their own process, learning to trust yours is important.
For me, when I think I am out of options, if I keep rolling it over in my mind, I usually come up with at least one other way through the problem. Depending on your personality, sometimes you need to let it get down to the wire to get the most creative with the solution. For this you need the grit to trust that you will find a solution. This can be stressful and sometimes you may fail, but if you had given up sooner you would have surely failed.
The best way to hone this skill is practice. You can try this approach for low stake problems and see if this strategy works for you, it’s not for everyone. If it does work, then the more you do it the more comfortable you will become with the threshold of risk and stress. As an entrepreneur for me this works. I work well, in fact thrive, under pressure.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?

Both improving the things you can within yourself, things that will give you the best bang for your buck (I don’t mean money) and knowing when to bow out are both important.
If you have a choice between you the “boss” who is mediocre at accounting and a badass accountant for hire, why would you do it when you can hand it off to someone far more competent. This frees up your valuable time, allowing you to be more effective in doing whatever it is you do best.  Many folks think they are saving money by doing things themselves when in fact they are not. Of course, sometimes, in the beginning of a venture we have no choice. But many people never get out of this mindset.  The ability to zoom in and zoom out on your business overall, quantify your time, energy and see where it’s best utilized is a priceless skill.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.barfranca.com
• Instagram: @barfrancadtla @rachelthomasdesigns