as of 10-29-25 📁
san francisco, ca
julia@julia-rosenberg.com
@_juliarosenberg
currently: tbd
previously:
+ ventures lead, uniswap labs
+ co-founder & ceo, metropolis
+ m&a, acreage holdings
+ poli sci student, NYU
WRITING
10-29-25 birthday bot
10-24-25 rinse & repeat
08-07-25 circle of competence
09-30-24 data trespassing
08-15-24 building in vegas
Growing up, I spent a lot of time running around the restaurant. I would sneak into the kitchen to steal slices of fresh warm bread and softened salty butter, beg my favorite server Kevin tor an extra Shirley Temple, and print 10 different versions of “forks” from the label maker in the small back office. Despite its fun, I also worked there one summer as a hostess, cheerily greeting all of my mom's customers and begrudgingly operating under my mom’s rule and order.
There's a few things she drilled into me from restaurant world:
- The customer is always right. It's your responsibility to manage reactions and curate a positive experience. One negative experience has rippling damaging effects far beyond comping a $20 salad.
- Your space is a representation of your quality—as a team, product, business. There is no detail too small and no effort lost when representing your brand and experience.
- No one is above the dirty work. During any shift, if you ever had a single spare moment, there was one clear direction: clean the bathroom. There is always work to be done.
I am now plagued by these same policies in my adult life as an OCD, people-pleasing, obsessive operator. I also now have a weird fixation on restaurant bathrooms. I still find myself tidying them out of habit: wiping water off the sink, replacing toiler paper, picking missed paper towels off the ground.
Yes, it is the place people go to take a shit, scroll on their phones, pick food out of their teeth. It is also the most opportune moment to capture a customer’s attention—where people take a breath, sit and observe, utilize a common space in solitude. Design choices, sensory opinions (light, sound, scent), hygiene practices, etc all roll into a specific customer experience. Although it’s not your core product offering, it’s a frequently overlooked moment to deliver your customer a crisp touchpoint of your product.
So here are some of my favorite spots, defined by their bathroom experience:
Jules, Duboce, SF
Eel Bar, LES, NYC
Pan Pan Vino Vino, Greenpoint, NYC
Rhythm Zero, Greenpoint, NYC
Baby Blue’s Luncheonette, Williamsburg, NYC
Ore Bar, Williamsburg, NYC