Behind the counter of The Serving Spoon, a James Beard Award winning soul food restaurant in Inglewood, California, sit two very different resumes that somehow add up to one seamless partnership. Jessica Bane brings a decade plus of corporate HR leadership, an MBA, and a master’s in Human Resources Design. Her brother, Justin Johnson, brings an Air Force Academy education, a captain’s discipline, and an Executive MBA from USC Marshall. Together, they run a family restaurant founded in 1983 now a third generation institution they officially took over from their parents in 2022.
A Family Business Written Into Their Bones
Jessica didn’t just grow up near the restaurant she grew up in it. She have been here since she was seven days old, regulars who watched her go from that to working during the summer vacations, to working as a part time job on the side on the weekends to now owning it. For her, the restaurant has always felt less like a workplace and more like an extended family reunion, where longtime customers remember her before she could remember them.
That sense of continuity matters to both siblings. Justin’s path took a detour through military service and corporate strategy before he returned to lead operations and growth at The Serving Spoon, while Jessica spent years in HR roles at organizations including WASH Multifamily Laundry Systems, William Warren Group, and Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market before coming back home. Her reason for returning was personal as much as professional. She had become a recent mother, and she wanted something that I could be an example for for my children, she also wanted to make more of a difference in the world.
Two Skill Sets, One Business
Jessica’s HR background doesn’t just inform hiring decisions it shapes the restaurant‘s culture. One of the things that shapes the way that I operate the Serving Spoon, or operate it with Justin, is the love for the people, we take things into consideration as far as life circumstances, with it not just being a number. That philosophy extends to customers as well as staff, rooted in what she calls a commitment to being fair and doing right.
Justin, meanwhile, applies the discipline of his military and business training to strategy and long term growth the kind of structure that has helped a decades old neighborhood restaurant scale into a nationally recognized name without losing its identity.
Siblings First, Business Partners Second
Running a family business with a sibling could easily strain a relationship. For Jessica and Justin, it’s done the opposite. He’s become one of my best friends,. We definitely talk on an everyday basis, unless we’re just trying to really give each other that space. She’s quick to credit her brother’s mind. He is the smartest out of all three of us, she said of her siblings, calling him wise beyond his years. Disagreements happen, but rarely derail them. We’re both pretty level minded and level headed. We really just, at the bottom line, want to do right by the people, and that is our kind of guiding course to get along.
A Legacy Four Years and Three Generations in the Making
Jessica and Justin have co-owned The Serving Spoon for just over four years, but the restaurant’s story spans three generations of their family. Winning the James Beard Award, means so much precisely because of that lineage. To be a part of the legacy and have this as our third generation, it just shows that the work that was put in before, during, and will continue to be done was worth it. What began as a neighborhood staple in Inglewood, has become something bigger: We now are a global name, and people are looking forward to coming here…