Eric Leitstein, who today runs OMG Hospital Group, started out as a teenager clearing tables at summertime resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York. His journey has taken him to Florida, Hawaii and Australia, from bartender to manager and ultimately owner.
At the low point in 1992-1993, he found himself “without a job and without a significant other,” and made the fateful decision to “stop feeling sorry for myself” and seek new opportunities in San Diego. “I was always a hard worker, and I knew I could make money,” he recalls. He maxed out five credit cards for $55,000 to help him get started in Pacific Beach, where over a decade he developed “Canes” as a highly popular restaurant and entertainment venue and then faced a new challenge when he lost his lease in 2009.
The next big decision was to buy the Pacific Beach Ale House, which launched him on the way to acquiring and developing new restaurants – Union Kitchen & Tap in Encinitas and the Gaslamp District, and Backyard Kitchen & Tap in Pacific Beach. He also is a partner in Sandbar Sports Grill in Mission Beach and the Fish Shop in Encinitas, Pt. Loma, Hermosa Beach and Pacific Beach. That high school busboy who studied Exercise Physiology at SUNY Cortland in upstate New York never acquired a degree in the culinary arts or restaurant management. He learned everything about the hospitality business on the job and how heads up an enterprise with about 500 employees, grossing about $40 million a year.
He credits his membership in Sage Executive Group over the past four years with helping him hone and develop his management skills and ownership values. He admits that he joined with some trepidation, “not comfortable feeling I was the dumbest person in the room” for monthly meetings with about a dozen top executives, some heading much larger companies.
He quickly discovered that “we all had similar issues” and that Sage meetings provided a forum “where I could share and solve problems with people in another world.” He explained that the group “kind of humbles you and holds you accountable,” asking follow-up questions, for example, about tough conversations that needed to be held with high-level managers. It also is a confidential forum, he said “to vent frustrations and share problems.”
Leitstein, 56, also has learned about the importance of maintaining the values of community that he has always held for what is still a family-owned business. The name, OMG, comes not from the popular social media abbreviation, but from the first initials for his three children’s first names – Oliver, Mason and Gavin. He came up with the name for Backyard Kitchen & Tap when he was standing in his own backyard and realized how important it was a place for conversation and relaxation.
“We’re about family,” he said. He continues to host events with his wife, Teresa, at their Encinitas home for chefs and managers and to regularly take his restaurant employees out to lunch to hear their ideas and concerns. “If you don’t care for your people,” he said, “then you can’t work for this company.”