About
Design Development Group
Restaurant design starts with a simple question.
Why do people choose to leave home and spend part of their day with you?
They come for the food.
They return for the experience.
It Is Rarely Just About Being Hungry
Whatever brings a guest through the door, something has to make that person want to return.
The food matters, of course. But food isn’t experienced in isolation.
The room, service, lighting, sound and atmosphere all become part of how the meal is remembered.
What Makes the Food Memorable?
The experience you have while eating it.
A beautifully prepared meal can be weakened by a noisy dining room, poor lighting, confusing circulation or a space that feels disconnected from the restaurant’s identity.
The opposite is also true. A well-planned restaurant can make guests more comfortable, support better service and give every plate a stronger setting. Guests may not identify every design decision, but they notice how the room makes them feel.
“I go out for the experience and the food. The two belong together.”
Your Guests Give You About an Hour of Their Time
They considered their options, chose your restaurant and walked through your door.
Our job is to reinforce that decision by creating an experience that feels worth their time.
Memorable enough to stand apart.
Comfortable enough to make them want to stay.
An Environment That Feels Unique Without Feeling Uncomfortable
Design Development Company creates environments that feel unusual and distinctive, but never foreign to the guest.
That balance is harder to achieve than it sounds. Push the concept too far and the restaurant can feel staged. Play it too safely and there is nothing for the guest to remember.
The goal is a room that has its own identity while still allowing people to settle in, enjoy the meal and connect with the people around them.
Three Generations of Experience Behind Every Concept
Design Development has operated as a family business for decades.
That shapes the way we approach our clients, our work and the responsibility that comes with each project.
We take your concept, goals and ideas seriously, then apply generations of artistic knowledge, restaurant experience and practical design thinking to move the project forward.
A creative tradition that has passed through several generations of the family.
Firsthand restaurant experience that reaches well beyond appearance and decoration.
Direct involvement from a family team that treats every concept as its own business challenge.
Design Development Company forms collaborative partnership with BLD; Burke, LaTour, Dern
A Family of Artists Who Understand
How Hospitality Works
Design Development Company was founded in 1983, but the creative history behind the firm began generations earlier. Art shaped the family. Restaurant operations sharpened the process. Together, those experiences created a design firm that understands both the visual impact of a space and the practical work happening inside it.
Art Was Part of the Family Long Before It Became a Business
The firm’s artistic background wasn’t added later as a brand story. It began in Europe during the early twentieth century and continued through several generations of the family.
Ron Lieberman’s grandfather was a talented artist in Eastern Europe. He travelled throughout Europe on the rail system, painting and touching up the elaborate hand-painted murals and decorative detailing inside first-class railway cars for the Russian rail system.
Ron’s father became an established artist. His wife’s father was an artist as well. Ron continued that history through his own work, followed by his son David.
Each generation found a different outlet for its creativity, but the underlying instincts remained familiar: proportion, color, balance, visual storytelling and an understanding of how surroundings affect people.
Creativity Wasn’t Brought Into the Company. It Grew Up There.
The family’s history provides a perspective that can’t be recreated through software or borrowed inspiration. Decades of drawing, painting, observation and design shaped how the team approaches atmosphere, detail and the emotional effect of a room.
Different Generations. A Shared Way of Seeing the Work.
Restaurant and hospitality design sits between art, business and human behavior. The artistic lineage supports the creative side. Decades of opening and operating real businesses provide the discipline behind it.
Ron Lieberman
Founder, President and CEO
Ron combines an artist’s eye with firsthand knowledge of restaurant design, development, construction and operations. His education and early career were always centred on art and hospitality environments.
David Lieberman
Vice President and Creative Director
David began working in the office at 12 years old. He later earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University, Long Beach, within its specialized, limited-enrolment design department.
From the Design Studio to Real Restaurant Operations
A restaurant can look impressive in a photograph and still fail the people using it.
Learning Commercial Design From the Inside
Ron’s first industry position was with Weber Showcase Company, a Los Angeles store fixture and design firm. In 1964, he joined a leading hospitality design firm and began collaborating on major hotel projects in Las Vegas along with restaurant interiors.
Hotels, Restaurants and Hospitality Projects
Those years provided exposure to complex hospitality spaces where circulation, lighting, service, atmosphere and visual identity all had to work together. A room couldn’t simply look good. It had to perform.
Twelve Years With Associated Hosts, Inc.
Ron joined Associated Hosts as Vice President and head of new concepts, architecture and design. He developed restaurant concepts, directed design and construction, and became an officer of the corporation.
The firm designed, built, developed, owned and operated 80 restaurants and six hotels across 27 states.
Design Development Company Is Established
Ron formed Design Development Company to share that combined creative and operational knowledge with restaurant operators. The firm could approach a project as artists and designers while understanding what would happen after opening day.
The Guest Experience Isn’t a Finishing Touch. It Is the Project.
Most people see restaurant design as a visual exercise. Choose the colors, select materials, add lighting and create a room that photographs well. That misses half the job.
Guests experience a restaurant through a series of small moments: finding the entrance, understanding where to wait, moving toward a table, hearing the room, reading the menu and deciding how long they want to stay.
Staff experience another version of the same space, shaped by kitchen flow, travel distances, sightlines, storage and service access. Years of restaurant ownership gave the team direct information about both sides of that equation.
A Memorable Room Still Has to Perform
Good design supports the concept, strengthens the brand and gives guests a comfortable, memorable environment. It also provides the operating team with a workable space.
Creative Thinking for Many Types of Hospitality Spaces
Some clients arrive with a developed concept. Others have a location, a menu and an early idea that still needs a clear identity. The process is adjusted to the operator, audience and type of environment.
Tell Us What You Are Building and How It Needs to Work
Bring the location, operating idea, challenges and vision. Design Development will help turn those pieces into an environment that supports the business and gives guests something worth remembering.