Phil Suarez

The Climb

Schooling at George Washington High School gave Phil Suarez an early base in New York, where the pace of the city would later shape the way he moved across industries. In Manhattan advertising, television production, and restaurants, the throughline is not spectacle but coordination: timing, presentation, and the ability to hold together a room, a team, or a production. Born in Washington Heights, New York City, Suarez built a career in spaces that reward people who can read the room and keep the work moving. Television production was part of that early discipline. At Papert Koenig & Lois, Suarez worked as a part-time employee in the television production department until 1973, a role that placed him behind the scenes and close to the mechanics of making other people visible. In 1973, he became co-founder / partner at Giraldi Suarez Productions, extending that work into production ownership and adding another layer of experience in an industry built on coordination and execution. Restaurants came next, with hospitality added to a career already shaped by creative work. In 1985, Suarez became restaurateur at Positano, then later restaurateur at Patria. Those roles sit naturally alongside production: both demand pacing, consistency, and a steady hand on the guest or audience experience. By 2013, he had also taken on producer credit for Kinky Boots in New York City, bringing the same organizing instinct back into a public-facing setting.

Today

Suarez Restaurant Group LLC in New York is the current expression of that long run through hospitality and production. As owner, Suarez works in the part of the business that depends on assembling people, setting standards, and keeping the operation aligned. His own description is direct: "I've been lucky enough to be surrounded by great talent." He has also said, "I always felt my job was to get that talent out there, let the public see the talent and let me be behind the scenes and see if I can make that work." That approach is part management, part curation, and it stays focused on making the larger system function. His own framing of the work is plain: "Pretty much done by design." In practice, that reads as a career built around placement rather than performance, with the value in knowing where to stand and how to support the work so it lands. For an operator, that is as important as any title.

In Their Words “I always felt my job was to get that talent out there, let the public see the talent and let me be behind the scenes and see if I can make that work.”