Alison Arth is a consultant, leadership coach, and author whose career is dedicated to working with hospitality leaders and teams to get clear on their vision, chart an achievable path towards it, and then provide the support, expertise, and accountability needed to realize it. 

Since graduating from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, she has helped lead over 40 restaurant openings including Michelin-star concepts for Chef Daniel Boulud in New York City, multiple James Beard-nominated restaurants for Chef Gavin Kaysen in Minneapolis, and Bon Appetit’s Best New Restaurant in America in 2018, Nyum Bai. 

Alison teamed up with OpenTable and dozens of the best restaurateurs in the world to author a comprehensive, modern guide to How To Open A Restaurant in an effort to pull the curtain back on the often elusive and always challenging process of launching a hospitality business. Her eBook has supported thousands of aspiring restaurateurs in bringing their dreams to life.

Her professional experience combines executive-level business leadership with the complex challenges of entrepreneurship. Alison's lived experience of rising up the development ladder from Assistant GM to Director of Operations prior to launching Salt & Roe, paired with the work she does presently as a consultant and coach, give her a uniquely deep track record of coaching business leaders, building successful teams from the ground up, and turning broken teams into thriving ones. She focuses on working with values-oriented leaders who are looking to:

• Purposefully continue their professional and personal development
• Achieve high performance results at work and outside of it without sacrificing their happiness, well-being, and sense of purpose
• Develop and open successful, sustainable hospitality businesses
• Improve the experience of their guests by improving the experience of their team

Clients have shared that what truly sets Alison apart are her graciousness and empathy, her unfaltering professionalism in every circumstance, and her deep, sincere passion for creating a sense of belonging for the people she serves. She is creative, conscientious, and inspiring — a tremendous asset to any project and any leader. A former client summed it up by saying: “In so many ways, Alison is the beacon for everyone to follow when a company or individual’s path needs illumination.”

Alison is a proud San Francisco native, an honorary New Yorker, and is grateful to have a home base in Minneapolis that offers easeful and near constant travel to both cities. She is honored to serve as the Board Chair for La Cocina, a San Francisco based non-profit organization that provides industry-specific technical assistance and access to market opportunities for low income women looking to launch, formalize, and grow their own food businesses.

Alison helps hospitality professionals find greater joy and deeper purpose in their work, and achieve personal and professional change in the direction of what's most meaningful to them.

Kimberly Belle is a life & leadership coach, supporting hospitality leaders in developing careers and concepts that meaningfully contribute to our communities. She works with owners and operators to guide them as they create new food and beverage ventures, grow existing restaurant operations, and lead lives of purpose. 

Having previously worked as a hospitality executive charged with developing the F&B programs at both Restoration Hardware and Crate & Barrel, Kimberly has partnered with company CEO’s and James Beard award-winning restaurateurs to help midwife their entrepreneurial visions and co-create branded restaurant, winery, and experiential retail concepts that endure. 

At Salt & Roe, Kimberly empowers her clients to craft crystal clear visions for their lives and livelihoods and guides them through the process of realizing those dreams. She coaches hospitality leaders who share our values and seek our support developing:

• Mindset tools, habits and the self-trust to live and lead sustainably
• Business plans, pitch decks and critical paths for launching new hospitality concepts  
• Growth strategies and comeback stories for evolving existing restaurants 

Kimberly’s own personal development journey has provided a model for guiding other creators who seek an integrated life with meaningful work. Her practice has been indelibly shaped by Growing Edge Facilitation, The Conscious Leadership Group, The Life Coach School, and Brendan Bruchard’s Advanced Coach Training, and her “ability to articulate thoughts, ideas and dreams in partnership with her clients” has been described by one client as “irreplaceable.”

Kimberly studied drama at New York University and was awarded an MA in American Studies from the University of London. She embarked upon a teaching career as a tenure-track writing professor, before leaving academia after a hunger to eat, cook and write her way through New York City led her to open The Naked Bakery and The Dinner Belle catering company there in 2007. Working as an executive chef and food writer, Kimberly authored an eponymous blog, dozens of dining and travel articles, and a food-forward TV pilot produced by the creators of Top Chef. 

She went on to join Restoration Hardware as their Director of Food and Beverage, where she led the Ma(i)sonry Napa Valley wine collective in Yountville, CA and developed the 3 Arts Club cafe, wine vault and coffee shop at RH Chicago. Her blueprint for experiential retail concepts designed to blur the lines between home and hospitality have been replicated inside RH galleries internationally. As the VP of Hospitality at Crate & Barrel, Kimberly’s next mission granted her the honor of learning from the very best in the business, when she hired both Salt & Roe and Union Square Hospitality Group to co-create in-store dining concepts, home-entertaining activations, and a capsule collection of wine storage solutions. 

An advocate for "elevated" dining experiences, Kimberly is the co-founder of the Crop-to-Kitchen community, an activist movement focused on lifting ingredient prohibitions and creating legal pathways for chefs to cook, serve, and sell cannabis cuisine in California. She is also the events committee co-chair of the San Francisco chapter of Les Dames d'Escoffier, and holds a 200-hour yoga teacher certification from YogaWorks. 

Kimberly lives in the Sonoma Valley with her family, where she is in ever eager search for Early Girl tomatoes.