Jessica Koslow

The Climb

A jam company is a specific kind of starting point: product-led, small-batch in spirit, and honest about what it is before it becomes a room, a menu, or a neighborhood habit. Jessica Koslow started Sqirl that way, and the line she has given for it — “a pretty honest process, in terms of asking myself what I wanted” — stays useful because it names the work without dressing it up. The path that followed still reads through that first decision: jam, neighborhood service, and a breakfast-and-lunch format built for repeat use. Georgetown University provided the formal education in the record, but the earlier professional chapter came from a different industry altogether. Jessica Koslow worked as television producer at Fox before Sqirl, a background that suggests a working life shaped by pace, structure, and audience before she moved into hospitality. Since 2011, Sqirl has been her own build: founder and owner, with the title carrying both authorship and responsibility.

Today

A restaurant can be a business and still remain tied to the block around it. Jessica Koslow has described Sqirl in those terms, grounding the work in Silver Lake rather than abstract brand language: “I live in Silver Lake and this is my community.” That is the register here — not expansion for its own sake, but a room shaped by the people and streets it serves. The shift from jam into daytime service is the clearest statement of how the concept widened without changing character. Jessica Koslow has framed it as moving from Sqirl and jam into “something that is a breakfast-and-lunch place for the neighborhood.”

Signature

Ricotta toast, sorrel pesto rice, and Blood Orange and Vanilla Bean Marmalade identify the Sqirl table in three different registers: toast work, rice work, preserve work. Jessica Koslow’s signature sits across those formats without overreaching, and the result is a menu language that can move from pantry to plate while staying rooted in the breakfast-and-lunch window.

In Their Words “This is my opportunity to take what I’m doing, which is Sqirl and jam, and transition into something that is a breakfast-and-lunch place for the neighborhood.” “I started Sqirl as a jam company, and it was a pretty honest process, in terms of asking myself what I wanted.”

Recognition

The line Jessica Koslow offers about her position is plainspoken rather than ceremonial: “I realized how fortunate I was.” In trade terms, that reads as an acknowledgment of fit — of place, timing, and the chance to build something that could hold both a product identity and a neighborhood role.