The Team Behind The Fund

JC Clow
The Man Behind the Vision
Founder. Restaurateur. Operator. Hospitality Entrepreneur.

For more than three decades, JC Clow has built his career around a simple principle: exceptional restaurants are created through equal parts vision, discipline, people, and hospitality.

Long before Cedar & Sage was conceived, JC was developing the operational instincts and leadership philosophy that would ultimately shape it. His career began in fine dining, including 12 years with Morton’s of Chicago, followed by leadership roles with Sostanza Trattoria and St. Mark’s Grill & Supper Club. Those years gave him a deep understanding of restaurant operations—from financial discipline and team development to service standards and the details that transform a meal into an experience.

In 2007, JC took the entrepreneurial leap and co-founded The Winery Restaurant & Wine Bar alongside longtime partners Chef Yvon Goetz and William Lewis. What followed became an important chapter in Southern California hospitality and, more importantly, a proving ground for JC’s approach to building restaurants.

Over nearly two decades, the team navigated changing economic cycles, the Great Recession, a global pandemic, shifting consumer expectations and an increasingly complex operating environment. Through it all, JC remained focused on the fundamentals: strong operations, exceptional food and beverage, genuine hospitality, disciplined leadership and creating restaurants where guests want to return.

The results earned significant industry recognition, including multiple Restaurant of the Year honors, national recognition for the wine program, Five Star dining accolades, and numerous culinary and hospitality awards.

But the awards tell only part of the story.

JC’s real expertise lies in understanding how restaurants work—not simply how they look or what appears on the menu. He understands the relationship between concept, location, real estate, construction, labor, food cost, service, culture, marketing and guest experience. It is that operator’s perspective that has shaped his next chapter.

The Evolution: Cedar & Sage
Cedar & Sage represents an evolution of everything JC has learned over more than 30 years in hospitality.

Rather than recreating a traditional fine-dining restaurant, JC and his team set out to build a concept for today’s guest: elevated but approachable, sophisticated without feeling formal, and driven as much by atmosphere and connection as by food and beverage.

Cedar & Sage Bistro & Lounge brings together chef-driven cuisine, thoughtful cocktails and wine, warm hospitality, distinctive design and live music within a polished, contemporary environment.

The concept is intentionally designed to have its own identity.

It is not simply another restaurant opening. It is the culmination of decades spent learning what creates loyalty, what makes teams successful, what allows a restaurant to endure and, just as importantly, what needs to evolve as the industry changes.

JC brings the perspective of an owner who has lived through the complete restaurant lifecycle—from opening doors and building teams to expanding concepts, navigating downturns, managing complex operations and identifying opportunities for future growth.

From Restaurateur to Platform Builder
Today, JC is applying that experience on a larger scale as Managing Director of Cork & Vines Fund I.

The objective is to combine the instincts and discipline of an experienced restaurant operator with a more structured approach to growth, real estate and investment.

Cedar & Sage serves as the flagship concept for that next chapter, with a strategy centered on carefully selected markets, strong demographics, distinctive locations and disciplined expansion.
For JC, growth is not about opening restaurants simply to increase unit count. It is about building restaurants capable of becoming meaningful parts of their communities—and creating an operating platform designed to perform for the long term.

That philosophy comes from experience.

After more than three decades in hospitality, JC understands that beautiful restaurants can be built quickly. Enduring restaurant companies cannot.

They are built one decision, one team, one guest and one location at a time.

A Career Built on Hospitality. A Future Built for Growth.

JC Clow’s story is ultimately not about one restaurant.

It is the story of an operator who has spent more than 30 years learning the business from the inside out—and who is now using that experience to build what comes next.

Cedar & Sage is that next chapter.