Cindy Renzi

For twenty-five years, Cindy Renzi has overseen the concept development and operations for several high-volume, multi-unit restaurants. In her extensive career, Cindy has opened over a dozen high profile restaurants in the metropolitan New York area. She has worked with a wide range of clients, including Windows on the World, Rainbow Room, Beacon Stamford, B.R. Guest Restaurants and the U.S. Tennis Open restaurant and catering facilities.

Cindy also has practical experience in all areas of food and beverage operations; she has advised clients on contract negotiations, detailed financial and budget development, event planning/execution, Unions, restaurant design, site selection, purchasing, and real estate negotiations. Her specialty is in financial analysis of budgets/projections and trouble shooting cost control issues.

For the last ten years Cindy has acted as a consultant to major corporations like Blue Coral Restaurants (a division of Outback Steak House Corporation), Hilton Hotels, Marriott Hotels, the French Culinary Institute, Copperfield’s Late Night Magic, Beacon Restaurants, JGR Consulting, Great Wine Made Simple, B.E. Group, Charmer/Sunbelt Industries & Restaurant Associates, and others. As a consultant Cindy has launched new products, opened restaurants, performed loss and theft control analysis, launched websites, designed menus, created business plans, researched, developed, and launched a high profile wine club, researched and developed new concepts, and selected new restaurant sites in several major cities.

Some of the greatest restaurateurs, leaders, and educators in the world have served as Cindy’s teachers and mentors, such as Dorothy Cann-Hamilton (Founder & CEO/The French Culinary Institute), Steve Hanson (Founder/B.R. Guest Restaurants), Joe Baum (Founder/Windows on the World, Rainbow Room, The Four Seasons), Jacques Pepin, Andre Soltner, Kevin Zraly, and Andrea Immer-Robinson.

For the past five years, Cindy has taught food and beverage operations at the French Culinary Institute in a program run in conjunction with Cornell University’s School of Hotel & Restaurant Administration. This experience has sharpened her presentation skills as she has addressed rooms filled with as many as two hundred and fifty people.