Cloak & Petal

A Michelin-recognized restaurant with an untapped brand story

Cloak & Petal is a Japanese restaurant in San Diego's Little Italy neighborhood — Michelin-recognized, doing $4M+ in annual revenue, with a loyal following and a highly Instagrammable aesthetic. But like many independent restaurants, the marketing operation hadn't caught up to the quality of the food and the experience.

I came in as fractional Creative and Marketing Director — not a consultant, not an agency, but an embedded leader with ongoing ownership of the brand's creative and marketing decisions. The difference matters: when you're in the building and tied to the outcomes, the work is fundamentally different from delivering a deck and walking away.

Building the brand operation — channel by channel

One of the first things I did was audit the email program: 90 campaigns worth of data sitting largely unused. That analysis became the foundation for a complete email strategy rebuild — new segmentation, new cadence, new creative direction. The result was a 460% lift in performance versus the prior average. That number isn't a coincidence; it's what happens when you actually look at what the data is telling you before you send anything. Maintained a 37–39% average open rate across 45 campaigns over 9 months — roughly 1.5–2x the restaurant industry benchmark — on a subscriber list of 6,100+.

On the organic content side, I built a content system that now generates 80,000+ monthly organic views — driven by a consistent visual identity, a content calendar with actual strategic logic behind it, and creative that reflects the restaurant's personality rather than defaulting to food photography formulas.

I also built an event programming strategy to activate the space during off-peak hours — pop-up dinners and curated community experiences that bring new audiences into the restaurant. Each event averages $1,400 in F&B revenue, with $13,543+ generated across the series to date. These events serve double duty: they're profitable activations and brand-building moments that introduce Cloak & Petal to a new, influential audience.

Currently leading the brand development for Black Mizu, Cloak & Petal's new café concept opening August 2026 — handling naming, brand identity, positioning strategy, and go-to-market. The concept has already landed national press in Yahoo before opening.

cloakandpetal.com — Custom WordPress Build

Designed and launched a custom WordPress theme from scratch, replacing an outdated third-party theme. Built fully custom PHP page templates across 7 site pages, implemented OpenTable reservation integration, and configured GA4 analytics and Meta Pixel tracking. Set up Schema.org structured data and SEO-optimized page titles site-wide. Core Web Vitals passing on both mobile and desktop within 3 weeks of launch.