Lauren opened her first restaurant when she was 25 in Houston, her hometown, along with well-known southwestern chef Monica Pope. After receiving her MFA from UCLA’s School of Theatre, Film and Television, Lauren worked on Wall Street for several years before starting a corporate communications practice in the Bay Area.

Working in the corporate world did nothing to satiate Lauren’s desire to create, so in 2013, she and wife and business partner Marissa Mandel founded Bar & Garden, the first wine store in Los Angeles that carried only wine from grapes grown without the use of herbicide, pesticide or fungicide in the vineyard and spirits free of artificial color, flavor or preservatives. Bar & Garden was an immediate success that nearly killed them both. In 2018, they sold the store to partner Ryan Frick, and it continues to thrive under his leadership today.

Lauren’s fiction has been featured in The Los Angeles Review, Better Culture and Literature, and The Rambler, among others. Currently you can find her working on a novel and jamming with her band Hey Neighbor in the dive bars of the Adirondack Park. She and Marissa divide their time between Cape Cod, Italy, and New York.