▼ Music capital to grow it into something that one day wasn’t the same but still the same overall. Maybe graduate it along a path of longevity.” Cameron says he’s the kind of owner who “puts my kids out at night at 8 p.m. and then [goes] back out till 2 in the morning, driving around making sure that everything’s good.” Lost Leaf, then, is another opportunity for a long-term objec- tive for Cameron: reinvigorating the arts and culture scene in metro Phoenix. “I think that what happened to the food and beverage industry and the music industry since COVID has decimated a lot of morale and the community in general,” he says. “I feel like people are totally fright- ened and disenfranchised. I believe they’ve been forgotten and they deserve a voice. I watched these people, who are musicians and bartenders, lose all of their jobs. These are guys that are my friends.” He adds, “So my plan is to build, organi- Renaissance Man David Cameron wants the new Lost Leaf to drive a Phoenix cultural rebirth. BY CHRIS COPLAN T he charm of the Lost Leaf has always been its sense of prox- imity. In a town of so many varied bar formats, its down- home, hipster-esque take on Cheers has made Lost Leaf a local treasure since 2006. But all that great music and tasty beer hasn’t protected the venue from hardships in recent years. Like many other clubs, Lost Leaf closed down amid COVID between January and July 2021. And while it’s maintained a presence ever since, it’s clear that the little venue that could was still struggling. Which is why it was shocking, but not entirely surprising, when owners Eric and Lauren Dahl announced recently that the venue was set to close (via the Arizona Republic). But, perhaps in a singular example of the venue’s staying power, fate was averted as the club was sold to another party in late March. While that means there’s still life left in this quaint little dive, the future of Lost Leaf nonetheless remains in flux. A lot of that has to do with the venue’s new owner, local real estate developer David Cameron, who just recently bought and overhauled Char’s Live. As Cameron tells Phoenix New Times, his experience is in real estate acquisition and disposition, and he’s still fairly new to food and beverage enterprises. “I’m a new kid on the block,” he says. “I’m a rookie. I maybe don’t know what I’m doing. But I’m smart enough to figure it out.” In fact, he was only a recent convert to Lost Leaf itself. “When I walked into Lost Leaf for the first time six months ago, I was enamored by how cool this little house felt and the vibe behind it,” he says. “It was amazing, but what could this be one day?” His young-blood status hasn’t stopped Cameron from seeing the value of a Lost Leaf (and by extension, Char’s) for both his bottom line and the shape of Phoenix at large. “They’re either iconic businesses that are either threatened to close or they’re in historical types of situations or their locations are just sort of epic,” he says of his acquisitions. He’s not entirely unprepared, though, as Cameron also owns an unnamed bar in Tempe, as well as a startup and local advertising group. But he’s taken to the food and beverage sector in what he called a natural development for his larger real estate portfolio. He’s recognized that inexperience, and has spent time devel- oping his skills as owner/operator. “I went through the motions of learning everything that I needed to learn about operating a food and beverage and hospitality property,” he says. “And I learned the business aspects of it and I hired consultants to come in and train me and teach me and learn how to build SOPs and a hospitality platform.” So, what does all of this mean for the bigger picture at Lost Leaf? As Cameron tells it, he wanted to hit the ground running with a series of what he deems improvements. Michelle Sasonov Jerusafunk at Lost Leaf. “We’ve already done a ton of tweaks in just 10 days or so,” he says. “We’re getting a new P.O.S. system and a bunch of things that are going to upgrade that overall expe- rience dramatically for the end user and for the operator itself. And that is some- thing that’s important.” He adds, “Visually, when you walk to the threshold of the door, it’s this kind of dusty old house that you can play music from and drink beer and wine. When you walk in, in the future, you may see the elevated lighting package on the inside, and you might see that we have things fitted on the tables, candles, or a menu potentially with QR codes.” For Cameron, these shifts aren’t about doing away with what Lost Leaf did right, but trying to take it all one step further. “The things that are for sale are going to be displayed in a higher-quality fashion rather than scribbled on a chalkboard, which was okay for that for that period of time,” he says. “It will just feel like an elevated experience when you walk in, and it’ll still feel like Lost Leaf because that’s never going to change. That energy has been, like, injected into that property. But you will walk in and have a slightly elevated experience.” But elevated doesn’t mean that Cameron’s changed everything. Much of the staff at Lost Leaf, including longtime booker Tato Caraveo, have remained on payroll. Cameron says Caraveo will help him with expanding the artists Lost Leaf sells and features. He also wants to take a more hands-on approach with Lost Leaf. “I want to run it differently,” he says. “[The Dahls] are great; they’re just sort of absentee owners. There’s nothing wrong with the operation. It was 100 percent clear to me that I had to save that business from closing and inject the resources and cally, several different hospitality concepts throughout the Phoenix metropolitan area, and connect them all together with simi- larly like-minded people who are wanting something more long-term, people that who are what I call lifers. Those people that want to show up and work their butts off and give 150 percent and know that they’re going to be taken care. Folks that know they can take care of expenses like rent and putting food on the table. So they have an opportunity to weather any future storm that’s coming, because we’re all worried about what tomorrow may bring.” And much of Cameron’s subsequent plans for Lost Leaf extend around that very notion of emphasizing sustainability and giving his staff and collaborators more opportunities. That includes extending the shared musical talent between Lost Leaf and Char’s. “It’s almost like the talent that you put out will also draw some future amount of talent,” he says. “So if we’re putting out a good curated set of physical entertainment through multiple venues, then we know that we’re going to start drawing attraction and attention from not just other musi- cians but also from the community.” Cameron noted that he wants “relation- ships with all musical talents in the city.” To help with that goal, he’s playing around with a First Monday program, a kind of local talent competition, either at Char’s or Lost Leaf, where the winner gets cash prizes and collects the door. Cameron adds, “So if I have three or four or five loca- tions, then groups can book multiple days in a month and secure their ability to feed their families. That’s, again, teaching a person how to fish, right?” The art presence at Lost Leaf is also another significant element. Cameron sees both music and art together as vital parts of his portfolio’s ability to shape the city. “We have to expand mediums of cultural arts, and we have to teach children about music and writing and expressionism and artistic things,” he says. “If we don’t do that, culture will die and creativity will die. And I will not stand for that.” >> p 34 33 phoenixnewtimes.com | CONTENTS | FEEDBACK | OPINION | NEWS | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | PHOENIX NEW TIMES APRIL 21ST– APRIL 27TH, 2022
