Independent consulting for matters involving restaurant operations, commercial kitchens, catering, food safety, employee training, and hospitality industry practices.
26 years of hands-on hospitality operations experience.
Denise Portillo, M.A., brings 26 years of hands-on experience owning, operating, and leading restaurants, cafés, corporate catering companies, high-volume event food service, federally contracted food service, and commercial kitchen operations.
Her experience includes food safety and sanitation, kitchen workflow, employee training and supervision, off-premise catering, health-department compliance, operational controls, staffing, purchasing, food costing, and hospitality workforce practices.
She is Le Cordon Bleu trained and holds both a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Psychology, providing an additional behavioral and human-factors perspective to questions involving training, supervision, procedural compliance, workplace performance, and decision-making in hospitality environments.
Denise is available to consult with plaintiff and defense counsel on matters within the scope of her education, training, and professional experience.
Owned and operated corporate and event catering serving businesses, government agencies, film and television productions, and diplomatic clients. Directed menu development, temporary kitchens, food transport, cold chain, permitting, purchasing, staffing, supervision, food costing, and regulatory compliance.
Owned and operated a farm-to-table café and catering division with responsibility for kitchen operations, hiring, training, scheduling, purchasing, costing, inventory, production, and health-department compliance.
Delivered food service for approximately 125–600 individuals daily under structured federal food-safety, sanitation, documentation, inventory, security, and dietary requirements.
Helped develop a teaching kitchen from an empty space through commercial kitchen planning, permitting, code compliance, contractor coordination, sponsorship development, and operational programming.
Her psychology training and workforce experience add a behavioral and human-factors lens to questions involving training, supervision, procedural compliance, communication, and decision-making in hospitality environments.
Las Vegas, Henderson, Clark County, and statewide.
Los Angeles, Orange County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, San Diego County, Southern California, and statewide.
Matters in other jurisdictions may be considered depending upon subject matter, scope, and travel requirements. Availability in a jurisdiction does not imply prior testimony there.
Plaintiff and defense matters considered. Potential engagements begin with a conflict check and preliminary discussion to determine whether the issues fall within Denise Portillo's scope of education, training, and professional experience.
Services may include, when appropriate, preliminary case consultation, document and record review, hospitality operations analysis, standard-of-care analysis within the scope of expertise, written expert opinions and reports, deposition testimony, and trial testimony.
A complete curriculum vitae documenting professional background, education, and credentials is available for download.
Download Expert Witness CVAvailable for plaintiff and defense matters within the scope of Denise Portillo's education, training, and professional experience.