At Home With Lauren Feldman & Serenity Kids
Written by Katie Hintz-Zambrano
Photography by Senay Inanici
The Northern California food star behind Valley Bar & Bottle and Swim Club on motherhood, feeding toddlers, & much more!
Eating well is a foundational part of the life of restaurateur Lauren Feldman—one of the forces behind Sonoma hot spots Valley and Valley Swim Club.
So, it’s no wonder that when she welcomed her daughter, Isla, less than two years ago, teaching her little one the value of mealtime would reign supreme.
“We always try to eat at least one meal a day together—whether it’s at the house or one of the restaurants,” Lauren explains. “I try to have her involved with the preparation of the meal—see, touch, and taste the ingredients as we go. And then I try for us to eat the same thing when we can, and have her wait for her food as long as the rest of us wait. We talk a lot about patience and that it’s ok to be bored and to learn to ‘wait with kindness.’ That’s what patience means in our household.”
Developing Isla’s palete towards real foods and away from sweet treats is another goal for Lauren. Thankfully, it’s a mission she shares with Serenity Kids, a family-run brand creating unique, nutrient-dense baby food, including pouches filled with meat and savory veggies and grain-free puffs.
“Serenity Kids was one of the first real foods I felt comfortable serving Isla. I was concerned about her first flavors being sweet, and so many pouches and snacks are all about fruits and sweet things. I knew Isla would love fruit and love sugar, so I tried to keep her from letting that flavor overwhelm her post-milk palate. Many of the Serenity Kids pouches and snacks focus on savory flavors, which was incredibly important to me.”
In today’s profile, Lauren invites us into her home—and restaurants—to talk about family mealtime (as Isla munches on her Serenity Kids faves), her journey to motherhood, how she thinks about sustainability, the elusive “work-life balance,” and much more. Enjoy!
Be sure to keep following along with Lauren on Instagram at @valleybarandbottle and @valleyswim.club, and follow Serenity Kids at @myserenitykids.
Did you always know you'd work in the food industry?
"I definitely did not always know I wanted to work in this industry. Growing up in Sonoma County, wine and food were always around in my world. My first job was at Willi's Wine Bar in Santa Rosa as a busser in high school. I certainly worked in restaurants while in college in Indiana, alongside other odd jobs, while studying fashion design and business management. I didn't really make it my career until living in New York while trying to make it in magazine editorial (hilariously). I was one of the first servers hired at a tiny restaurant that was opening in the West Village called Dell'anima with an incredibly knowledgeable young sommelier named Joe Campanale. We were this crazy, incredibly young and energetic team and the program was focused on Italian wine and I had recently studied abroad in Florence. I fell in love with the camaraderie, the culture, ethos, and the world of wine just opened up to me. It's certainly one of those things where the more you know, the less you know—endlessly thrilling."
What did you study in school and what were your early jobs like?
"I grew up in Santa Rosa as a figure skater. I got really into designing costumes for myself and eventually other skaters and our synchronized skating team. I pursued fashion design in college, but wanted a place where I could also get a good business education. I ended up at Indiana University where the fashion program at the time was part of their school of music—particularly interesting for evolving what I had been doing into costumes for ballet and opera at the university. I double majored in business management with a minor in fashion merchandising."
"I then went to New York City with a desire to never sew another garment again! The glamorous world of magazines called to me, but I couldn't make it work financially, ending up working nights in restaurants. Once I found Dell'anima and the joy of opening a restaurant from the ground up with an energetic team where everyone was so fully on board with what we were doing, the choice was made for me."
"I worked for the same restaurant group, opening three different restaurants in Manhattan before moving back to California in 2010. I assumed I would work in restaurants upon my return and had a plan to work harvest for Arnot Roberts—finding their Trousseau in New York was a bit of a catalyst for moving back to California, indicating the shift that had started to take place in the California wine scene. (You can read all about it in Jon Bonné's The New California Wine). I ended up meeting Andrew Mariani from Scribe at the very beginning of their winery hospitality journey and instead stayed with them for the next few years."
"Eventually, however, restaurants pulled me back. I missed working with a greater variety of wines and particularly Old World wines. Over time, I recognized that the seemingly disjointed education and work history of my past actually made me particularly suited to food and beverage hospitality and marketing. So in 2015 I started my own consulting company focused on wine and food education, sales, marketing, and branding. I did that for a number of different wineries and restaurants until we opened Valley in 2020."
“Serenity Kids was one of the first real foods I felt comfortable serving Isla. I was concerned about her first flavors being sweet, and these pouches and snacks focus on savory flavors, which was incredibly important to me.”
How has being in the food industry impacted how you think about what you feed Isla?
"What we eat together is obviously important, but I think my love of restaurants greatly influences how we eat together. I like us to eat real, whole foods and I try to make snacks (which are completely unavoidable in my opinion) as healthy as possible—sneaking in green things and unique flavors that aim to broaden her palate with as little resistance as possible."
"When it comes to the 'how,' we always try to eat at least one meal a day together—whether it's at the house or one of the restaurants. I try to have her involved with the preparation of the meal—see, touch, and taste the ingredients as we go. And then I try for us to eat the same thing when we can, and have her wait for her food as long as the rest of us wait. We talk a lot about patience and that it's ok to be bored and to learn to 'wait with kindness.' That's what patience means in our household. I think that's incredibly important. To Slow Down. Slow Food is a core of my own food philosophy and I want her to understand it.”
"I say 'try' and 'as much as possible' a lot, because I don't want people to think this always happens. We all just do our best. These are my goals, and trying until success is the best we can do!"
When did Isla first start enjoying Serenity Kids products?
"Serenity Kids was one of the first real foods I felt comfortable serving Isla. I was concerned about her first flavors being sweet, and so many pouches and snacks are all about fruits and sweet things. I knew Isla would love fruit and love sugar, so I tried to keep her from letting that flavor overwhelm her post-milk palate. Many of the Serenity Kids pouches and snacks focus on savory flavors, which was incredibly important to me."
What have been her favorite Serenity Kids products throughout the years?
"We did the chicken pouches and squash and beets were early favorites. Now she is mostly out of her pouch phase, but she still loves the snacks—and I love that they have hidden veggies in every bite."
What do you like about the brand?
"Savory flavors, ethical sourcing, the need to not refrigerate—SO easy on the go! I love a product that makes my life easier but that I feel is only doing good for my daughter's body and palate."
Beyond food—is raising Isla in a sustainable way something you think about?
"Absolutely. I think it's easy to be completely overwhelmed by trying to do everything to raise your child right. We of course ALL feel that way—how much TV, how much education, how much sugar, how much sunlight. To be honest, I really don't like the word 'sustainable'—particularly how it relates to the world of wine (lots of green washing). But when you think about sustainability as far as the actual definition—sustainable is about making decisions that we all can SUSTAIN—the child, the parent, the planet. All of it. It's about the balance that makes our lives work.”
"When we get her toys and clothes, hand-me-downs are always best. When we purchase, I try to buy eco-consciously, buying items that will last and can be passed down to others, avoiding fast fashion and plastics as much as possible. We don't do TV and movies all the time, but we recognize their educational benefits as well as allowing for the reality that it makes our lives easier from time to time—to be able to get dinner together and clean the house and make our lives work. Multiple things can be true at once and grey areas can exist and that is OK."
Did you always know you wanted to be a mother?
"No, actually. I was never one of those little girls who had a baby doll that I dressed up. I liked horses and drawing and playing outside. I was a bit of a tomboy and always an athlete and there was a long chunk of time in my adult life where I could go one way or the other when it came to having a kid. Even when we started trying to conceive, I was kind of like, 'we'll just see how this goes.' There was a real part of me that just felt like it was going to be a challenge to get pregnant and I kind of made my peace with that before we even started trying. But then, after quite a while of trying and feeling like it might not happen, it just did! But I can still see a path where it didn't happen, and I see the joy in both. I'm obviously incredibly happy to be a mom and love my daughter more than anything—but I also completely see the joy in the other path. Everyone deserves their own journey."
“My love of restaurants greatly influences how we eat together. I like us to eat real, whole foods and I try to make snacks as healthy as possible—sneaking in green things and unique flavors that aim to broaden her palate with as little resistance as possible.”
How would you say your identity has shifted after becoming a mother (if at all)?
"I was surprised by how natural becoming a mother has been. I never thought of myself as particularly maternal, but the transition feels like the most normal, natural thing. I was—still am—a workaholic. It's hard for me to not be able to do everything 100%. There's no possible way—and I've had to come to terms with that. But I still feel like the same person, still trying to do it all, all of the time!"
"I find it sadly difficult to hold adult conversations and focusing on what my friends are saying while also trying to pay attention to my daughter—that's the hardest thing when it comes to my identity. Continuing to be a good friend and a good listener is incredibly important to me, and it is one of the biggest challenges. But I also know I'm not the only one who feels this way, which helps."
How old is Isla now and what is she most into?
"Isla is 1 year, 8 months. She is a crazy child—her mind absolutely amazes me. I'm sure all parents feel this way, but she blows me away every day. If she built a rocket ship tomorrow, I'd be hard pressed to be surprised. Her favorite things are airplanes and the airport. She loves walking our dog, Roman. He is 90 pounds and she wants to walk him ON.HER.OWN. Obviously, I don't let that happen, but she loves to hold his leash so I have to get my own other leash. She's learning how to jump and love trampolines. She loves Bluey and Elmo and the normal toddler things."
What excites you about motherhood right now?
"I'm most excited by her. I just love seeing what each new day will bring. It has started to move so fast, which is scary, but it's also fascinating and thrilling."
What makes you most nervous?
"EVERYTHING. To be honest, school makes me nervous. It all just seems so different and so much scarier than when we were children. I can't believe that it is completely normalized to send your child to school with the very real possibility that they can be shot and killed while there—or at least see many more fights and violence than I was exposed to. I just don't know how we do it. I'm super Type A either way. I have a hard time with anything that is out of my control. Traveling can be like that for me. The older she gets, I know there will be more and more things that are out of my control, and I don't really know how I'm going to manage that."
What was your own upbringing like?
"I was raised with a sister 18 months older than me in the hills between Santa Rosa and Calistoga—now known as major fire country. We had a pretty large property where my dad built a house back in the '80s when that sort of thing was possible for upper-middle class families. We had a stable and horses, which sounds fancy, but it was really just fairly normal country life. I was outside with very little adult supervision a lot of the time when we were at home. We also had a lot of programmed things in our lives—choir, dance, figure skating. I don't have the slightest clue how my mom found the time to get us to all of our activities. All I know is that I was never bored. There was always something to do—even if those things were simple."
Are there things from your upbringing—and your partner's—that you're consciously trying to incorporate into Isla's upbringing?
"My husband Tanner clearly wants music to be a big part of her life, which I am totally on board with. For me, outdoor activities and an active life in general is important. I want her to have time around horses. It obviously isn't a possibility for us to have our own horses anymore, but I think being around large animals in that intimate way does something to you. I believe there is a lot we can learn from them.”
"An element that wasn't incorporated in my life, but that I will likely never forgive my parents for, is the ability to speak another language fluently. Language learning was a part of my early life, but I don't want to miss that boat with Isla on being able to learn a language from the jump. We're working on that. Travel and exposure to other cultures and philosophies."
Tell us about your restaurants—Valley and Valley Swim Club—and your roles at both of them.
"My husband and I own the restaurants with our two close friends and business partners, Emma Lipp and Stephanie Reagor. Two sets of couples and all of us married to each other in one way or another! Tanner and I run the front of house with Emma and Steph primarily back of house. I am personally a little more introverted than Tanner, so I do a bit more of the behind-the-scenes work. Ordering, business maintenance, AP/AR, marketing, HR, etc. The time I am able to spend on the floor with the team and our guests is a welcome break from all of that when it comes!"
Both of the restaurants are gorgeous. What were you going for when you designed both of them and also designed their menus?
"Thank you so much. Valley was our first and we poured our heart and soul into it. It is an amalgamation of all of the things the four of us love about dining and encapsulates a vibe that we desperately were looking for in this place that we live. We wanted to bring a bit of what we miss about our lives in New York or our travels in Europe while celebrating the incredible fresh produce that we are blessed with here in California—ingredients unlike anything you'll find anywhere else in the world. Valley for us feels like coming home."
"Swim Club is similarly a synthesis of our cumulative histories—we all spent time on the east coast and love seasonal seafood, created to celebrate the bounty of sea fare that is just a short drive away. There isn't really anywhere else in Sonoma with a seafood focus. We also wanted it to feel casual and be kid and dog friendly. A bit more of an everyday vibe."
Do you have any creative practices or rituals to get you inspired for what you do at work?
"My husband and I have recently come to the realization that 'work life = life' and we're finding the joy in the reality that work is always happening. We try to carve out family time and time with friends that is separate from work, but our work really is so joyful and we recognize that there are certainly worse worlds to have to be in all the time."
The food business can be a grind. Add a baby into the mix and I imagine it might be extra hard. Are there wellness practices or boundaries you try to create to prevent burnout?
"I wish I did. It's a goal, but I'm not there yet."
How have your views of career + work shifted (at all) since becoming a mother?
"I suppose I'm finding myself a little frustrated by the cliché Mom/CEO/Entrepreneur mentality that 'you can have it all and do it all.' I think that there are people who are in a different echelon (with, honestly, the means to have a LOT of help) for whom this might be possible, but I think that's a bit elitist and out-of-reach for the average person. You can't expect to be able to do 100% of everything all the time. I've had to become OK with my own imperfections and the imperfections of the world as it exists. I am lucky to have an incredible support structure around me with business partners that are equally willing to embrace my family (our family's) new reality. They've been willing to adjust their expectations of me, and I've had a hard time doing so, but am becoming more and more okay with adjusting my own expectations and pressure on myself."
Any things coming up in life and work that you're excited about and want to share?
"I wish! We're just doing our thing, growing the many babies in our lives. Winter is a slower moment in Sonoma but it's a time to get creative. We're still figuring a few things out, but I encourage people to stay tuned to the short-lived changes and 'pop-up' creations both restaurants will be putting together for the holidays and early 2025!"
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I absolutely love the honesty & vulnerability in this. As a mom who started an organic, cold-pressed juice business in London, UK, when my daughter turned 1… without any family around (they live back in Canada), it was this amazing, tumultuous journey. Balance was non-existent, but my husband (who worked a 9-5 to support this endeavour / our life!) did our very best and it is one of the best experiences to date. So lovely to see your successes ❤️