Sandra Palomo

Le Cordon Bleu Pasadena gave Palomo the technical base that preceded her professional line work. Before that, she served as staff sergeant at U.S. Army until 2003, a stretch that points to the discipline and structure later visible in her kitchen management. Her first restaurant roles — line cook at The Frontrunner at Santa Anita Park and prep cook at The Country Club at Wynn Las Vegas in Las Vegas from 2005 — placed her in the daily mechanics of service, where timing, pace, and consistency matter more than theory.

The next stage of her career moved from execution into supervision. Palomo became sous chef for in room dining at Encore in Las Vegas, then executive chef at Lobby Bar at Encore in Las Vegas, followed by operator at The Pizza Place at Encore in Las Vegas. Taken together, those titles show a chef moving through different kinds of oversight, from a focused service channel to broader operational control. That progression continued with executive chef at Double Barrel Roadhouse at the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas from 2013, before she became sous chef at Yardbird Southern Table & Bar in Las Vegas.

The later return to Yardbird at executive chef level in 2017 to 2018 closes the loop on a career built through repetition, scale, and successive responsibility.

Palomo’s signature dishes include Chicken and Waffles, Buttermilk Biscuits, and Llewellyn's Fine Fried Chicken. The list places her in a register of familiar, service-ready cooking: dishes built for immediate recognition, steady demand, and the kind of consistency a busy dining room depends on. In that sense, the signature is less about novelty than about execution at scale.

Her 2017–2018 executive chef credit at Yardbird in Las Vegas is the clearest marker in the record. It captures the point where the earlier stages of her career — military service, formal training, and layered hotel and restaurant work — came together in a top kitchen role.