Ana Bar and Eatery
New York, NY | 2022

Led by Anna Castellani (Forgers Market, Dekalb Market Hall, The Hugh Food Hall), in partnership with Related Realty and the team behind Miznon and HaSalon, ANA Bar and Eatery opened in Hudson Yards in 2021. Today, ANA is thriving, offering local office workers and the millions of visitors to Hudson Yards best-in-class dining and experiences.

Like many clients I’ve worked with, they knew something was not working but didn’t know what. As with many businesses that opened during or shortly after the pandemic, ANA experienced many challenges getting open. Additionally, ANA is a massive business with multiple revenue centers intersecting in an open-floor space, which made it confusing for patrons to know what to do. The owners sought help managing day-to-day operations and rapidly opening the remaining concepts whose openings were behind schedule.

I was hired to assess the operation, make recommendations for improvements, develop an action plan and training program, and then implement it. My initial engagement was for one month, but I was asked to stay on for another month until we hired a new Food and Beverage director.

The assessment didn’t take very long — the existing management team (F&B Director and a Cafe Manager) was doing their best but was completely overwhelmed. They were open, which was an amazing feat, with the lingering effects of the pandemic still deeply affecting us in NYC, but they were just getting through each day. Everything they were doing was reactive with nearly zero proactive strategy. The following was accomplished in about eight weeks.

Step 1: Organization, Workflow, and Systems

In the first three days, I completely reorganized the physical space to improve workflows, from the kitchen to the storage areas to the office. With everything in a place that aligned with how people used those things in the space, we focused on task and time management, cleanliness and health code, aligning verbiage, improving guest interactions, and hiring necessary staff in management and hourly roles.

Step 2: Hiring Key Personel

Working with the HR manager, we hired great people to fill key management and hourly positions, the most important of whom was the new executive chef. With a chef to lead the kitchen team, we dramatically improved the quality and consistency of the food by hiring and training qualified culinary staff. We also brought on supervisors for the cafe so I could shift my focus to opening the remaining revenue centers, starting with the bar.

Step 3: Open the Bar

With guidance from the owners about what they were trying to achieve, the chef and I created a food menu that focused on Meditteranean small-to-medium-sized bites. I hired a bar manager to run the space and a consultant to develop the initial cocktail menu. I reupholstered the banquet, bought new stools and tools, expanded the utilization of Toast POS, and hired a team. We opened quickly and, all things considered, successfully.

Step 4: Hire my replacement

Although the cafe and bar operations were stable, there was much more to do, including opening the largest revenue center: the food counter, now called “Market Kitchen.” We needed to bring in a full-time Director of Operations to do this. Collaborating with ownership and HR, we reviewed many resumes and interviewed several candidates until the exceptional Tracy Wilson’s resume came through.

Tracy and I knew each other from our USHG days when she was responsible for running the multi-outlet food businesses at the Museum of Modern Art. She was a perfect fit and has since developed ANA into the thriving business it was always meant to be.