A little over ten years ago I had this really dumb idea to open a fancy restaurant next to a strip club. No one stopped me, so here we are.

A lot of stuff happened in that decade. I burned a few sauces, overcooked some vegetables and occasionally made something good. But the food is not what I remember the most. It’s the people.

I got lucky. I set out to open a place so small and controlled that I could be weird and not go out of business. We stayed small. We stayed weird. But along the way success found us, mostly because of a group of people that I am grateful and honored to count as friends and colleagues.

Thank you first to Andrew Miller and Nick Muncy for your passion, dedication and professionalism. Thank you for bringing order to my chaos. If you had a good meal at Coi in the last four years, they were responsible.

Over the last few months, the people who made the restaurant what it is today have come in ones and twos and fours, to dine, to reminisce. And I realized how many of the people who worked here have created friendships that survived their employment. They get together on vacations and work trips, see each other at weddings and parties. Some even got married! And so, so many have gone on to open their own businesses. People have often remarked on how many chefs have come out of our kitchen, but what is really surprising is how many of them have become owners. All of them small, highly personal, and occasionally visionary businesses, all of them successful.

Some have created new ways of looking at food, like Jake Godby at Humphrey Slocombe, James Syhabout at Commis and Carlos Salgado at Taco Maria.

Some have opened incredible neighborhood places, like Brett Cooper at Aster, Evan and Sarah Rich at Rich Table, John Marquez at Artisan Bistro and more recently, Kate Millard at Coquine and Kim Alter at Nightbird. And many more.

There are new places on the horizon. Matt Tinder is opening Saboteur bakery in a suburb of Seattle that will create a new standard for bread baking in the northwest. Bill Corbett is opening an ice cream store/vegetarian restaurant in Los Angeles that will feel fresh and exciting even in a city full of good food. Paul Einbund and Gavin Schmidt are teaming up for a highly anticipated rebirth of Slow Club called the Morris.

And in the work of all of those who have passed through you can see how California cuisine is mutating, on its way to becoming truly unique. It’s in Carlos’ fusion of his Mexican heritage and European training, in James’ uncompromising Thai food at Hawker fare, in the new Peruvian restaurant that John is opening soon. It’s in the quirky, wonderful ways that they are pushing to create something all their own.

I am very, very lucky. Coi grew in ways that I never imagined, and became so much bigger than me. All I can think is that maybe by trying so hard to find a space where I could be different within a conformist society, I inadvertently created a safe space where everyone who worked there felt confident in following their dreams.

Now, ten years in, it’s time for the energy of renewal and recommitment. Starting now, today, I welcome Matt Kirkley as chef and leader. Matt will bring the drive, talent and dedication that the restaurant demands. He will reshape it according to his own sensibilities, and hopefully inspire a new generation of cooks to dream. And so we begin again.

Much love always to my Coi fam. Thank you.

Peace,

D.