As the old adage goes, when life hands you lemons, make lemonade — unless you are David and Lesley Cohn, owners of Cohn Restaurant Group (CRG). In their case, when life handed them a struggling meat market, they made a successful burger restaurant. Today, the Cohns own some of San Diego’s most popular establishments, including Corvette Diner and Gaslamp Strip Club. But their entrance into restaurants in the mid-1980s came as a result of trying to beef up a different venture that was suffering from unfortunate timing. “Honestly, it was a little bit by accident,” Lesley said of their first foray into the restaurant business. “David’s family … settled in San Diego in the very early ’80s, and they had opened up a Midwestern-style meat market called Iowa Meat Farms, and it was right at the time when Californians stopped eating red meat. Everyone looked at each other and said, ‘We’ve got to do something a little bit different,’ so we started with a very, very small restaurant, a burger concept.” They soon added frozen yogurt to the menu, becoming San Diego’s first self-serve topping bar. It would be the first of many innovative ideas the Cohns would implement in their restaurants. When the burger joint became a hit, Lesley said the Cohn family considered opening more locations with the same concept — until 1986, when they fell in love with a location in Hillcrest and came up with the idea for the Corvette Diner, a boisterous 1950s-style eatery that has become well-known for its loud waitresses and bright neon décor. However, the Hillcrest of 1986 was a far cry from the gastronomic hot spot that it has become today. Only two other restaurants were open at the time, and the neighborhood was “pretty gritty,” Lesley said. “Nobody could believe we would go into a neighborhood [where] there was very little going on,” she said. “But my husband … really had the vision to move forward with that.” With Lesley on board as the interior decorator and David managing operations (plus some help from David’s parents), they managed to not only make the restaurant a success but also transform the neighborhood. That type of visionary thinking is still evident in the Cohns’ eclectic portfolio of 12 San Diego-area restaurants and one franchise, none of which are exactly alike. The cuisine varies from Pacific Rim-inspired fare at Kemo Sabe to French country dishes at Thee Bungalow to Northwest-fusion recipes at Indigo Grill. Over the last three decades, the Cohns have continued to find opportunities that others have missed and have consistently created distinctive restaurants with a unique variety of menu options. Part of the group’s success seems to stem from the addition of executive chef and partner Deborah Scott. She joined the Cohns in 1995 and has consistently been voted San Diego’s top chef by patrons across the county (including voters in the 2010 Peninsula Beacon Readers Choice Awards) for her involvement with Indigo Grill, Kemo Sabe and Island Prime and C-level. “She’s fabulous,” Lesley said of Scott. “She’s in the restaurants all the time, she recognizes guests, they love her, she talks to them … she really is all-in-one.” Scott, who hails from Virginia, said that her natural Southern hospitality has helped her engage customers. “If your guests aren’t happy, then there is no point,” Scott said. “There is only one way to really, truly know, and that is to talk to them yourself.” Both Lesley and Scott attribute CRG’s accomplishments to their commitment to hospitality, but Scott said that their achievements to date can also be credited to the unique strengths that each partner brings to the business. “David has an extremely great marketing background, and he is an amazing businessman,” Scott said. “Lesley is very creative in her design and she is very, very good at creating an image in a restaurant through design. I like the presentation and the development of the menu and the concept … so I think between us we have a good energy and I think we all bring something important to the table.” The Cohn Restaurant Group owns and operates 12 San Diego restaurants: 333 Pacific Blue Point Coastal Cuisine Corvette Diner (Liberty Station) Gaslamp Strip Club Indigo Grill Island Prime & C-level Kemo Sabe La Jolla Strip Club Tea Pavilion Pineapple Grill The Prado Thee Bungalow (Ocean Beach)