Expertise Across Every Kind of Food & Beverage Venue
Jeff Leiter, Principal & Founder
Jeff designs places people want to be in. His work is the full guest experience of a venue: how a room feels on arrival, how a bar draws a crowd, how a kitchen and a service line hold up on a Saturday night.
He got his start developing restaurants for Back Bay Restaurant Group in Boston, and has since practiced with seven Boston firms including Elkus Manfredi and Bergmeyer, and with MBH Architects and ELS Architecture and Urban Design in California. He also co-founded Silverscape, a design and branding agency serving a national client base.
In 2010 he began building venues of his own, founding, designing, and operating three food & beverage businesses over the following decade: a production brewery with a full commercial kitchen, an outdoor container beer garden and entertainment venue, and a full-service restaurant and brewery. He carried each one through design, entitlements, permitting, buildout, hiring, and daily service.
Crafted Destinations grew out of that. Recent work spans full-service restaurants, historic restorations, breweries and tasting rooms, bakeries and cafés, wine bars, and container villages. Jeff works with clients from first concept through opening day: developing the design, then carrying it through space planning, engineering coordination, permitting, and construction — with a working knowledge of what a menu, a labor model, and a P&L actually demand of a building.
He holds a master's degree in architecture from MIT and a Bachelor of Architecture from Wentworth Institute of Technology.
How Projects Get Staffed
Crafted Destinations is a principal-led studio. Jeff leads every engagement directly, from first concept through opening. But no venue gets built by one person, and teams are assembled to the project: a single café doesn't need a forty-person firm, and a multi-unit program does.
ELS ARCHITECTURE + URBAN DESIGN
Architecture at scale
Founded in 1967, ELS is a California firm of roughly forty architects, planners, and designers with offices in Berkeley, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Diego. For work that needs a larger team — multi-location programs, mixed-use environments, complex entitlements, or landlord and developer coordination — ELS provides production capacity and multi-disciplinary depth.
David Masenten, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Principal and Director of Mixed-Use Practice
David's work spans commercial tenant fit-outs, interiors, mixed-use and retail, and urban design, with particular experience in approvals requiring public outreach.
ONE HAT ONE HAND
Custom fabrication
A studio of designers, fabricators, artists, welders, and technologists producing placemaking features, custom millwork, art fabrication, and specialty installations. Their work has been produced alongside firms including Gensler and Rapt Studio, for clients including Google, Apple, and SFMOMA.
Marcus Guillard, Chief Creative Director
Fifteen years realizing complex spatial visions on design-build and fabrication engagements.
RYZE PRODUCTIONS
Brand and concept narrative
Identity, storytelling, and the guest-facing expression that makes a concept feel whole — the connection between what a place says and what it is.
Caitlin Jewell, Branding Consultant
Twenty years creating retail spaces and experiences, and brand manager for food and beverage, retail, and entertainment venues across the country.
Over the years, we've collaborated with incredible entrepreneurs, supporting their passion for business through architectural and brand design projects. It's an honor to be part of their journey.
Our Valued Clients
Over the years, we've collaborated with incredible entrepreneurs, supporting their passion for business through architectural and brand design projects. It's an honor to be part of their journey.