Two Businesses, Soboroff Win Awards

The Palisades Chamber of Commerce heralded two businesses—Scarlett’s Cupcakes and Maison Giraud—and businessman Steve Soboroff as examples of excellence at last Thursday’s Installation dinner.

Framed by the large picture window overlooking the Riviera golf course, Susan Payne, who owns Scarlett’s with her husband, Andrew Wilson, received the Best New Business award. The criteria: a business must be older than a year, but younger than three, and a stable business that was needed in the community.

Ramis Sadrieh, owner of Technology for You! and a winner of the award in 2005, made the presentation while sampling one of Payne’s cupcakes. “Everything is made fresh daily,” he said, before asking for a glass of milk to accompany the sweet.

Payne, who opened her shop at 857 Via de la Paz in December 2010, also makes pies, muffins, French macarons, custom cakes and banana pudding.

“She supports the schools with gift certificates and donates the daily leftovers to the Ocean Park Community Center,” Sadrieh said. (Palisadian Ella Zarky drives the sweets to Santa Monica.)

In addition to her walk-in business, Payne has a flourishing custom-order business, supplying specialty cakes and other orders for recent events such as graduation, Father’s Day and the upcoming Fourth of July.

When she accepted the award, Payne said that she and her husband (a real estate agent RE/MAX Agency in Marina del Rey) moved to the Marquez Knolls neighborhood in 2006. “We’ve decided never to move again,” said the Tennessee native, who lived in New York before moving to California. “The Palisades is the greatest place to live.”

The Chamber’s annual Beautification Award, presented by the Pacific Palisades Rotary Club, went to Alain Giraud and his wife, Catherine, owners of  the French restaurant Maison Giraud and the adjoining gift store, Lavender Blue, on Swarthmore.

In making the presentation, Rotary president Neil Godsey said the award is given for a business that “renovated and/or beautified its exterior and/or grounds, thereby contributing to the overall beautification of the community.

“The award is for the exterior, but anyone who has been inside either place knows the store and restaurant are just as beautiful inside as they are outside.”

The two businesses (next to Bentons) share a wide glass storefront, allowing a view of the patio’s outdoor seating and pedestrian activity beyond. The space, formerly occupied by Dante’s restaurant, was designed by Palisadian Cosimo Pizzulli of Pizzulli Associates, who in 2011 said the design was meant to evoke the feeling of the south of France.

Lavender Blue’s walls and fixtures are white, and the wall space is a burst of color of patterned tablecloths, napkins and placements, along with an array of other distinctive home accessories from France.

“Merci beaucoup,” Alain Giraud said in accepting the award with his wife, “and bon appetit. Please come and visit us, and thank you to the investors who were crazy enough to invest in the restaurant.”

Soboroff, who was unable to attend, received the Rotary Club’s Business Person of the Year Award. Nominees must hold a senior-level management position in his/her company; must live or work in Pacific Palisades; and must demonstrate leadership reflecting Rotary’s Four-Way Test, relating to truthfulness, fairness, goodwill and ethics.

A longtime Palisadian and a mayoral candidate in 2001, Soboroff owns a real estate development company and has held a number of high-level positions in government and the nonprofit world.

Godsey noted that Soboboff played an important role in “rescuing the Playa Vista project” (overseeing the development of parks, an elementary school, offices, residences, while preserving the wetlands) and bringing about construction of Staples Center, while also co-founding in 2012 a group called Parks Save to help keep City parks viable despite funding cuts. He was also the senior advisor for the arrival and exhibit of the Space Shuttle Orbiter Endeavour at the California Science Center. He is the current chairman of the board of directors of The Weingart Foundation and a member of the board of governors of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles.