![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/OCM_SRI_DIVEL_004-1024x809.jpg\")
Credit: Irvin Rivera<\/p>\nSri Divel, founder of The Culinary CMO, has been fascinated by the dining-out experience since childhood, so it stands to reason she\u2019d build a career in hospitality, elevating food and beverage brands with strategic initiatives. Her current project: contributing to an ongoing city campaign, the Foods of Garden Grove.<\/p>\n
Credit: Irvin Rivera<\/p>\n
What surprised you most about Garden Grove\u2019s dining scene?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s rare to encounter a dining scene where so many restaurants are preserving recipes and cooking techniques that have been passed down through generations. \u2026 Experiencing these kitchens felt like being invited into someone\u2019s family home and learning about their culture through food. I was also deeply impressed by the City of Garden Grove\u2019s commitment to its restaurant community. The city has shown a genuine desire to uplift local businesses and celebrate the diversity of its dining landscape.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re a trained chef and a level one sommelier, and you\u2019ve worked in hospitality at Montage Laguna Beach and held executive roles at several national brands. Why transition to the marketing side?<\/p>\n
Restaurants operate in a completely unique environment. It is one of the only industries where decisions are made in real time, and there is no margin for error. Every guest experience is immediate. Every moment matters. Even when I held executive leadership roles, I was always deeply involved in branding, marketing strategy, training, and menu development. What became very clear was that many marketing agencies simply did not understand how restaurants function. They were skilled marketers, but they had never lived the operational intensity of hospitality. They didn\u2019t understand the pace, the pressure, or the realities of running service seven days a week, including holidays, nights, and weekends. \u2026 Restaurants need marketing partners who move at the same speed they do.<\/p>\n
Do your son and daughter share your passion for dining out?<\/p>\n
We often dine at the restaurants I work for, and my family gets to meet the incredible chefs, owners, managers, and teams that I work alongside. Hospitality is ultimately about community and connection, and my family has become part of that world. They see firsthand the passion that goes into these businesses and the relationships that form along the way. Restaurants are about bringing people together, and that\u2019s something I feel incredibly grateful to be part of every day at work and in \u201cmom mode.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sri Divel, founder of The Culinary CMO, has been fascinated by the dining-out experience since childhood, so it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-336361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}