The native Angeleno and self-made nightlife poobah shares his thoughts on downtown business, celebrity joints, and his movement into the art world.

What do you do? Well, this is a question I ask of myself a lot lately. I used to describe myself as a bean counter because of my consulting business for bars. In the cash-happy, alcohol-lubricated business, I was the checks and balances guy. Now I've become more of a glad-hand -- a lot of meeting and greeting. People have been calling me a trendsetter, though I see myself as just having a healthy work ethic. If I have to sum myself up as one thing, it would be an ambassador of the service industry.

Besides your own Redwood Bar & Grill, where can you be found in the evenings? If I have to say one restaurant in Los Angeles, it would have to be Musso & Franks. Whether it's some hipster investor I'm trying impress, my relatives from out of state, or a nice dinner out with my wife, it is always in the top five.

Believe it or not, LA’s been around a while.

1. Musso & Frank’s (Hollywood) - Where Faulkner mixed his own mint juleps and drank himself to death and Chandler wrote The Big Sleep.
2. Dan Tana’s (West Hollywood) - Where old-timers and Nicole Richie alike dine on steak and spaghetti.
3. Grill on the Alley (Beverly Hills) - The original, the classic, the always popular: eating here means seeing the only three-piece suits in LA.