We were lucky to catch up with David Lieder recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi David, thanks for joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea
The path from idea to execution for Lieder’s began with a dream. I’d always imagined opening a Shabbat takeout restaurant—a place where people could get traditional foods without the weekly cooking burden. Growing up in a family with 14 children plus my parents, I cherished helping my mother prepare our Shabbat meals, especially making the chicken dishes. That connection to Shabbat food preparation planted the seed for what would later become my business.
What’s interesting is how my dream came to life in such an unexpected way. Before I could even begin offering my cooking to the community on a retail level, a rabbi who knew about my passion for Shabbat cooking approached me. He asked if I could prepare dishes for their synagogue’s Friday night dinner and Shabbat kiddush. This wasn’t how I’d imagined starting—I had envisioned opening directly to families—but it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I didn’t have to seek out my first client; they found me based on my enthusiasm for these traditional foods.
When that initial service received positive feedback, I immediately recognized this could be my path to realizing my dream, just from a different angle. The very next week, I started calling other synagogues around Los Angeles, offering the same menu of traditional dishes. This became my market research in action—I discovered there was genuine demand as one synagogue after another began placing recurring weekly orders.
Within months, the operation outgrew my home kitchen. I needed a dedicated space quickly, so I approached one of my synagogue clients about renting their kitchen facilities. For the next five years, that synagogue kitchen became my business headquarters, allowing me to develop recipes, streamline operations, and build a reliable client base across LA.
The business evolved toward my original dream organically. Congregants who enjoyed my food at their synagogues began reaching out directly: ‘I tried your kugel over the weekend and would love to buy some for my home. How do I do that?’ Soon, I was selling to individual families out of the alleyway behind my rented kitchen—literally passing containers of food through the back door to customers.
When those alleyway transactions became a regular occurrence, I knew it was time to fully realize my initial dream. People clearly wanted access to these traditional foods for their homes. That’s when I began planning for a proper retail location—somewhere accessible to everyone in the community.
My journey shows how dreams often materialize in unexpected ways. While I had always envisioned a direct-to-consumer Shabbat food business, starting with synagogues provided the foundation, experience, and customer base that ultimately made my original dream possible. Each step was driven by actual demand rather than assumptions, allowing me to grow organically while perfecting my offerings before taking each next step toward creating Lieder’s as it exists today.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My journey into the kosher food industry began in the most natural way—at home, as one of 14 children in a household where Shabbat meals were central to our family experience. From a young age, I was drawn to the kitchen, especially preparing chicken dishes alongside my mother for our Shabbat table. There’s something deeply meaningful about cooking for this weekly holy day—it connects us to tradition while nurturing both body and soul.
Lieder’s emerged from this personal connection to Shabbat food preparation. While I had always dreamed of opening a Shabbat takeout restaurant, the path unfolded in an unexpected way. A local rabbi who knew about my passion for cooking approached me about preparing meals for their synagogue’s Friday night dinner and Shabbat kiddush. This initial opportunity allowed me to share my cooking beyond my family table and confirmed what I had suspected—that many in our community yearned for traditional Shabbat foods but struggled with the weekly preparation time.
What began as preparing foods for one synagogue quickly expanded as I reached out to other shuls in Los Angeles. For five years, I operated from a rented synagogue kitchen, developing recipes and building a loyal clientele among congregations across the city. The business evolved organically when synagogue members began requesting my food for their home Shabbat tables, leading to impromptu sales from the alleyway behind the kitchen. This grassroots demand ultimately inspired the transition to our current retail location.
Today, Lieder’s has grown far beyond our original Shabbat food focus. While we continue to provide authentic, homestyle kosher cuisine specializing in traditional Shabbat meals, we’ve expanded to offer comprehensive Glatt Kosher certified catering services for virtually any occasion. Our culinary repertoire now spans a wide variety of cuisines, all prepared in-house by our dedicated team. We cater life cycle events from brit milahs to bar/bat mitzvahs and weddings, corporate lunch meetings that impress clients and colleagues alike, elegant breakfast parties, large-scale fundraising events, and everything in between.
What sets Lieder’s apart in the kosher food landscape is our authentic approach to both traditional Jewish foods and our expanded catering offerings. Every dish we create comes from recipes refined through years of cooking for my own family and community, while our Glatt Kosher certification ensures the highest standards of kashrut. We’re not trying to reinvent Jewish cuisine—we’re preserving it in its most comforting, familiar form while making it accessible to busy modern families and adapting our expertise to create memorable dining experiences for all occasions.
The problem we solve extends beyond just Shabbat preparation. We make it possible for the kosher community to enjoy exceptional dining experiences across all of life’s celebrations and gatherings. For corporate clients, we offer kosher solutions that accommodate everyone at the table. For simchas, we create memorable menus that honor the significance of these milestone moments. And for Shabbat, we continue our founding mission—ensuring families can maintain beautiful traditions without the weekly pressure of preparation.
What makes me most proud is seeing how our food brings people together across so many different settings. When a corporate client tells us their meeting participants raved about the lunch, when a bride and groom share that their wedding menu exceeded expectations, or when a family tells us our Shabbat packages have become their weekly tradition—these moments affirm the deeper purpose behind what we do.
I want potential customers to know that Lieder’s isn’t just a food business—it’s a mission to preserve tradition, strengthen community, and make meaningful Jewish experiences more accessible through exceptional kosher cuisine. Our Glatt Kosher certification reflects our commitment to serving the entire community with food they can trust completely.
Our journey from a synagogue kitchen to a comprehensive catering company demonstrates our commitment to growing organically and authentically. We expanded not through ambitious business plans but by listening to our community’s needs and responding with consistency and quality. This approach continues to guide us as Lieder’s evolves, always keeping the warmth of tradition and the joy of gathering around good food at the heart of everything we do, whether it’s for Shabbat dinner, a corporate event, or life’s most precious celebrations.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
I believe my reputation in the community grew from a place of genuine passion rather than business calculation. My childhood experiences cooking Shabbat meals in our family of 16 instilled in me a deep appreciation for how food connects us to tradition and to each other. When the rabbi first approached me about cooking for their synagogue, I was simply sharing something I loved, and I think people could taste that authenticity in the food. It touched me deeply when synagogue members began seeking me out personally, asking to purchase dishes they’d enjoyed at community events. The fact that customers would meet me in the alleyway behind my rented kitchen just to get food for their Shabbat tables still humbles me to this day.
Serving the community has always felt more important to me than maximizing profits. Starting with synagogues rather than going straight to retail allowed me to be part of something meaningful while learning what people truly wanted. Obtaining Glatt Kosher certification was essential to me because I wanted everyone to feel complete trust in what I was preparing. As we’ve grown to cater lifecycle events—weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs, and other significant celebrations—I’ve felt privileged to be part of these precious community moments. Throughout our expansion, maintaining the quality and consistency of our food has remained my absolute priority. I’m grateful that this approach has resonated with so many families who have welcomed Lieder’s into their homes and celebrations over the years.
Have you ever had to pivot?
I can share a pivotal moment that truly tested our resilience at Lieder’s when COVID hit. As a business deeply connected to community gatherings, our catering operation came to a screeching halt just before Passover—traditionally our highest volume season of the year. Rather than our expected large orders for gatherings where a single seder might serve multiple families, we suddenly faced the challenge of subdividing these into much smaller household-sized orders as families couldn’t gather together. What was typically a majority pickup and minority delivery model flipped drastically, with deliveries becoming our primary fulfillment method, creating a massive increase in administrative workload.
I found myself navigating not just the logistics of order fulfillment but implementing entirely new safety protocols—creating safe workspaces for staff, designing contact-free pickup procedures, and managing socially distanced customer lines. While it was undoubtedly the most stressful Passover of my career, it taught me an invaluable lesson: food businesses will always be essential, but how we deliver that food must remain flexible. Our takeout-focused business model gave us an advantage over traditional restaurants, allowing us to pivot more quickly. We embraced new technologies and online platforms offering COVID-specific features like contactless delivery. This experience reinforced my belief that adaptability isn’t just helpful in business—it’s absolutely essential. The changes we implemented under pressure have actually improved our operations long-term, proving that sometimes our greatest growth comes from our biggest challenges.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lieders.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dovidlieder/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-lieder/
- Other: 3 brands by David Lieder
Lieder’s
https://www.instagram.com/followthelieders/Kulinary Event Catering
https://www.instagram.com/kulinary.laKosha Bbq Experience
https://www.instagram.com/koshabbq/
