bread & Butter: LA Food and Travel Agency, 80+ Staff

Originally published February 2021. Updated October 20, 2026.

What is bread & Butter?

bread & Butter, styled with a lowercase b, is a full-service communications agency based in Los Angeles that works exclusively with food, drink, hospitality and travel brands. Rachel Mays Ayotte and Meredith Vachon founded it in 2007 to bring new, authentic and inventive approaches to PR and marketing. The agency has grown into an independent, founder-led firm with more than 80 employees across 20 locations in 2024, per The PR Net.

Hospitality is the idea that organizes everything the agency does. bread & Butter says it was founded on the principles of hospitality, the generous and friendly treatment of guests, and it brings the perspective of waiters, chefs, bartenders and front desk teams to every brief. That gives its people an inside understanding of what a restaurant, hotel or food brand is trying to achieve, and how to explain it to media and guests.

The agency combines public relations with digital, influencer, creative and affiliate marketing under one roof, so a restaurant opening, hotel launch or product rollout can be planned as one integrated campaign. Vice president of travel Sarah Jacober Spitzer has described the result as the personal feel of a local agency with the reach of a national one, and a 2024 PR Net entry shows the model winning agency-of-record work with major food and destination brands.

Who founded and leads bread & Butter?

Ayotte is CEO and founder, per The PR Net and a 2020s trade interview. A University of Oklahoma alumni profile says she and Vachon met while learning hospitality PR together, then started their own agency to be more hospitable, with Ayotte in Los Angeles and Vachon in Austin for the first nine years. The firm says it was founded with hospitality principles in mind.

Ayotte leads a senior team that includes Jennifer Cornet as president, Samantha Markiewicz as chief digital officer, and Sarah Jacober Spitzer as vice president of travel, who oversees PR strategy and execution across the agency's travel accounts, per The PR Net and a hospitality trade interview.

What does bread & Butter do?

bread & Butter offers a full menu of communications services built around food, drink, hospitality and travel brands.

• Food and beverage PR: inspired activations and campaigns, restaurant and product launches, media tours, brand audits, key message development, and strategic partnerships and events.
• Travel and hospitality PR: media strategy for hotels, resorts and destinations, with a travel team that has grown in both the quality and number of its hotel and destination clients, per The PR Net 2022.
• Social, digital and influencer marketing: social media management, competitor analysis and reporting, e-commerce and Instagram shop support, branded partnerships, influencer matching, and, as its digital division grew, paid social, Google ads, email and affiliate marketing.
• Creative and design: brand identity, website design, menu design and content creation, plus Shopify e-commerce sites for CPG and spirits brands, per The PR Net 2022.
• Industry leadership: in 2024 the agency launched Late Checkout, a hospitality trends platform, and breadWinners, a monthly digital job fair.

The agency has expanded steadily. Per The PR Net 2022, it opened offices in Atlanta, Denver, Washington, D.C. and Newport, reaching 17 offices nationwide, and added a U.K.-based partner to extend its reach in Europe and Asia. EPR's food and beverage PR, hospitality PR and travel PR sections cover its categories.

Which clients has bread & Butter worked with?

The PR Net's 2024 entry lists Whole Foods Market, North Italia, the Canyons Village Management Association and Wynn Las Vegas as new agency-of-record campaigns, and says the firm helped open Pret a Manger's first West Coast location, The St. Regis Chicago, drift Palm Springs and Conrad Orlando. It also credits its work with chef Peter Hemsley's Aphotic, which earned its first Michelin star, and the cookbook Pizza Night, which the entry describes as a New York Times bestseller.

What recognition has bread & Butter received?

The agency has appeared on The PR Net 100, the network's annual list of leading independent agencies, with entries in 2022 and 2024 highlighting its growth, new agency-of-record wins and hospitality-first culture.

How does bread & Butter compare with other hospitality PR firms?

bread & Butter is a mid-sized independent hospitality specialist, so compare it with Benvenuti Public Relations, Hemsworth Communications, Brandman and Quinn. Its edge is the breadth of a full-service team, with PR, digital, influencer and creative work under one roof, focused entirely on hospitality.

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Related: PR agency profiles, Food and beverage PR, Hospitality PR, Travel PR