One local business will grow, another one will consolidate

Two longtime La Cañada Flintridge businesses are going in different directions as they look out of town for more customers, with Dish restaurant expanding and Posh Accessories consolidating.

Dish, a La Cañada mainstay for more than 10 years, plans to open a second restaurant in Thousand Oaks by mid-September.

“La Cañada is a great place to do business in terms of wonderful environment, great people, wonderful community, but it’s a little small,” owner Kevin Finch said. “It’s 20,000 people. It really requires a business like ours to market into the adjoining communities like Pasadena and Glendale.”

Finch said he had been looking at expansion possibilities for several years, and credited Glendale-based Charles Dunn & Co. broker Bill Boyd with finding a good fit in the Janss Marketplace development on Moorpark Road.

“In this economy,” Finch said, “it’s a good time for restaurant concepts to find new locations, just because there’s a lot of inventory available.”

Finch said the new restaurant will look familiar to patrons of the La Cañada Dish, but will feature patios and a larger bar.

“La Cañada has allowed us to refine the concept and understand our costs and what works and what doesn’t work, it’s been a great place as far as being an incubator,” he said.

Finch said opening a new location is a chance to give new opportunities to key La Cañada employees, with some splitting time between the two locations at first.

“We’ve been here 10 years, so we have lots of people who are kind of ready to grow,” Finch said. “If you’ve been a line chef someplace for five years, it’s time to step up.”

Posh Accessories, meanwhile, is consolidating its efforts down the hill in San Marino. Owner Anie Guluzian will close her Foothill Boulevard location by Aug. 31 to focus on her shop on Mission Street in San Marino. Guluzian said the decision to close her La Cañada location after six years came down to simple math.

“Business is amazing in San Marino; we have two stores [and] I’m one person, so it would be so much easier for me to consolidate the stores and just manage one,” Guluzian said.

Guluzian said her La Cañada store is doing well, but it was outpaced by her San Marino location, which has been open for a year.

“[La Cañada] is just not conducive to walking and shopping … the few stores in town are not close enough that people can park and walk,” she said. “I was here for six years; we had six great years, but one store is just so much more manageable.”