Runyon Co-founders David Fishbein & Joseph Miller
Business Lunch
David Fishbein and Joseph Miller lead Runyon, a lifestyle-driven real estate group based in Los Angeles with projects spanning the globe.
Prior to its founding in 2013, Joseph was a member of the acquisitions and development team The KOR Group, a privately held real estate development firm in Los Angeles. David, who spearheads the company’s merchandising and hospitality initiatives, has advised top independent designers, chefs and founders on how to thoughtfully grow their brand’s footprint and has been influential in developing two of the world’s most dynamic retail streets - Fillmore in San Francisco and Abbot Kinney in Venice.
In addition to managing properties, the group develops retail and restaurant concepts and advises independent brands on real estate strategy. The team built the first project under the Mixed-Use ordinance in Downtown Culver City, Platform, alongside other projects including ROW DTLA, The Optimist and Teller.
I caught up with David and Joseph to talk about their unique mix of real estate, hospitality, and retail.
Briefly, can you tell us about Runyon?
Based in LA, Runyon is group where hospitality meets real estate. We own and manage real estate assets, create and run hospitality brands and provide advisory services to some of the largest real estate owners in the country. Our multi-use development Platform in Culver City – home to restaurants like Roberta’s, shops like Monocle, creative offices and a park – is our “test kitchen” for new projects.
What type of clients do you typically work with, and what are you helping them accomplish?
The first five years of our business were all about advising independent brands on their real estate journeys across the US – think Rag & Bone, ALC and Blue Bottle. Now we’re more focused on our own brands, like Platform and The Optimist, but we still strategically partner with, advise and sometimes invest in people and projects that we are excited about.
What was the idea behind the development of the Platform in Culver City? How did you start, and what was the F&B strategy going in?
We built Platform because we felt like Los Angeles was missing a walkable destination of shops, restaurants, green spaces that had a sense of community. We also wanted to be able to curate the mix over time and make sure that the cool, indie brands we love would always have a home.
It has been amazing for Platform to become a dining destination in LA – among our nine F&B outlets, Roberta’s Pizza opened their second restaurant with us and Madeo opened a little sister restaurant with us recently. Our strategy has always been to go after talents and partners that we are truly excited by, and would want to introduce our friends to. It usually starts with a great meal.
What did you learn after opening your first development?
A lot! Trust your gut. Make sure that you understand every layer of your business intimately. Speak to your customers honestly.
You continue to lead merchandising for the 32-acre mixed-use development, ROW DTLA. What does that entail?
We love ROW DTLA! We were very involved in the project’s inception – which included bringing in strategic retail and restaurant partners - but have stepped back a bit in recent years. Merchandising ROW is a fun project because they have a lot of space so partners can go BIG.
What factors do you consider when curating F&B tenants for your clients’ developments and that of your own?
Do we love this? Does the partner love what they do? Would we want to bring our friends and family here? Would they come back?
Pre-pandemic it was reported that you would be expanding the Platform. How have those plans been impacted?
Luckily we were able to forge ahead with the expansion of Platform and our Platform Park in the past year. The ground floor retail and restaurant on the new addition, both Runyon projects, will open in Spring 2022. The last year has been tough on independent brands, but we got really creative and it’s helped us get even closer with our community.
Lastly, you’ve experimented with retail through the creation of your own store, The Optimist. Do you foresee a Runyon creation on the F&B side?
Over the past few years we’ve transitioned into more of a Netflix model, creating some of our own content in the merchandising mix. We opened The Optimist and Teller, our multi brand men’s and women’s store respectively, and have five other brands in various stages of development. Two of them are F&B projects – stay tuned!