Attagirl’s Alice Mai Put the Brakes on a Career in Real Estate to Pursue the Exhilarating Life of a Chef

Instead, the Orange County native earned an economics degree from UCLA and joined Lee & Associates, a prestigious commercial real estate firm that specialized in creative spaces and worked with start-ups and cool clients like Google and WeWork. Promoted to office manager, Alice was killing it, managing about $15 million of assets a year while earning an impressive salary.

But something was missing. She noticed how passionate her colleagues were and realized that, although she excelled at her job, she wasn’t inspired by it. Alice began imagining what work would excite and inspire her.

At the time, she was living in Culver City and dining out frequently. “I loved going out to eat. I still do. I love dining out even more than I love cooking,” she jokes.

Cooking quickly emerged as a natural career choice. “This was around 2012, when food blogs were becoming really big,” she says. “Yelp was huge. I wanted to get more experience so that I could speak knowledgeably about food, not just be a critic.”

Alice asked Chef Brendan Collins at Waterloo & City, a British gastropub in Culver City, if on her day off she could work in his kitchen as a stagiaire (an unpaid apprentice). “They were doing really cool stuff,” she recalls. “They had a robust charcuterie program and did all sorts of classic British cuisine, fish-and-chips, beef Wellington and Sunday roast with Yorkshire pudding.”

She began her restaurant side gig while still working full time at the real estate firm. Every Saturday she’d go into the restaurant from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. and work the pantry station with the cooks. Alice relished every minute of her 12-hour nonpaid shift. She’d found her passion.

“I loved the chaos. It was a really old-school-style kitchen. Very Anthony Bourdain Kitchen Confidential. Not as PC as things are now, but it was an excellent training ground—the intensity and meeting those standards. I always tease my cooks that they haven’t been yelled at until they’ve been yelled at in a British accent.”

“It’s not an Alice Mai restaurant; it’s California Mediterranean. It’s the food we both like to cook and eat, and it’s a good fit in the area.”

After earning her stripes as a stagiaire, Alice took a paid position at the restaurant making $100 a day and gradually transitioned to working full time at Waterloo as a line cook. Entrusted with the charcuterie program, she spent her hours making terrines, chicken liver mousse and cured meat until the restaurant’s lease came up and it closed.

Having cut her teeth at Waterloo, Alice went on to work in several other impressive restaurants—moving up the kitchen hierarchy in each restaurant, including Superba Food + Bread and The Bazaar by José Andrés at SLS Hotel. While a junior sous chef and manager at Tender Greens in Santa Monica, on the doorstep of the renowned farmers market, she also built long-term relationships with farmers and honed her skills working both front and back of house.

A friend from Waterloo & City who was working at M.B. Post at the time (now a chef at AttaGirl) told Alice that Fishing With Dynamite (FWD) was hiring.

“He helped me arrange an interview with Chef David LeFevre,” she remembers. “I did a seven-course tasting interview out of The Arthur J and was hired as chef de cuisine at FWD, running the back of house operations. Because the restaurant is so small—only 32 seats—we didn’t always have a full management team. It was usually me and whoever the director of ops was at the time running the restaurant. I had just finished my first year at FWD when COVID happened.”

When the restaurant closed during the pandemic, Alice transitioned to The Arthur J to help with takeout. It was the only one of Chef David’s restaurants that didn’t close. When FWD reopened, they built a patio out of six parking spaces in front of the restaurant and neighboring M.B. Post.

“That was the first time I knew I really wanted to be part of this restaurant group for my future,” she shares. “They made it a desirable space where people wanted to dine, and doubled the FWD seating. We also doubled our annual revenue during COVID.”

With the success of FWD, Chef David asked Alice about her future goals. She told him she wanted to open her own restaurant and that she wanted to do it within the Simms restaurant group, where Chef David is a partner. He suggested Alice learn the front of house operation so she could operate an entire restaurant. So Alice became a chef de cuisine at Fishing With Dynamite.

“I went through front of house training and all the work groups: bartending, busing, wine program, the whole operation,” she says. “Originally the timeline was to do that for three years, but after a year and a half this [AttaGirl] space became available. Chef David said, ‘Hey, are you still interested in partnering to open a restaurant within the group?’ And I answered, ‘Definitely.’”

Alice and Chef David both wanted to create something different. Whereas FWD is a seafood restaurant and The Arthur J is a steakhouse, AttaGirl would be a concept.

“It’s not an Alice Mai restaurant; it’s California Mediterranean,” she explains. “It’s the food we both like to cook and eat, and it’s a good fit in the area.”

While opening AttaGirl in Hermosa Beach, Alice was still navigating the aftermath of recent personal challenges. In late 2019, her beloved mom was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and passed in September 2020. Devastated by the loss, Alice sought new hobbies to distract her focus.

A friend invited her to a car meet, where she was captivated by the sleek machines being transformed into race cars. She had purchased a 2017 Toyota GR86—a two-door sports coupe favored by racing enthusiasts—back in 2016, but for five years it remained stock. Seeing the modified cars sparked something in her.

Soon she began customizing her own car—wrapping it in Tiffany Blue and taking it to the track. From that moment on, Alice was hooked.

During the 11-month delay that postponed AttaGirl’s opening, Alice was at the track nearly every month. Then in January 2024, she lost traction on a wet mountain road and went off a cliff. Both she and her car had to be airlifted out by helicopter. Miraculously, Alice walked away with only a few stitches on her forehead.

The 86 had saved her, but it was totaled. She quickly bought another, this time with a manual transmission—far better for racing—and once again wrapped it in Tiffany Blue. Still, the crash shook her to the core, profoundly reshaping her outlook on life. Not long after, she and her husband divorced.

She continued working at FWD while waiting for AttaGirl to be greenlit. And she kept racing. Through her car community, Alice met someone new—a fellow enthusiast—and together they traveled to the Tokyo Auto Salon annual exhibition.

“He gets it,” she says about her beau supporting her work schedule. “When we first opened AttaGirl, I worked almost 50 days straight without a day off. I remember the first day I planned to take off. That morning he said, ‘So what time are you coming home today?’”

Then in December, Alice slammed her 86 into a tire wall during a race. Insurance would have written the car off, but instead she sold it to a small dealership planning to repair and resell it. The frame was intact, but the cosmetic damage was extensive. The quarter panel was a single piece, making repairs costly.

Seven months later, Alice bounced back. “I just bought a 2026 GR Supra MkV Final Edition, carbon fiber trim everywhere. She’s white, but I’ll probably have her wrapped. I’ve been wanting one for a really long time, so it was nice to do this for myself.”

AttaGirl finally opened this March, and the community has warmly embraced its concept—filling nearly 100 seats each night. Menu highlights include the Chef’s Plate (a sampling of four spreads served with house-made breads), a variety of skewers prepared over a live wood fire, a spiced lamb Bolognese with radiator pasta and a brunch favorite: cinnamon roll focaccia.

Equally notable is AttaGirl’s curated wine program, featuring more than 60 distinctive selections from around the globe—from Central Coast chenin blanc to a Premier Cru from Burgundy.

“We’re so thankful for the support,” she expresses. “Even in the first weeks, we had so many regulars coming in, making multiple visits and bringing their friends.”

Alice’s focus is clearly on AttaGirl … and a little on racing. When asked if she wants to have children, she says no. “But I do want more cars.”

She adds, “My child is Cookie, my 12-year-old Maine Coon cat. She’s big, fluffy and white and still has a lot of kitten energy.”

For now, Alice is content with the success AttaGirl is enjoying. Asked if she aspires to own more restaurants, she replies, “Once upon a time, I didn’t. I thought I would just have one and done, but now I want to keep doing more. I want to give opportunities and teach other chefs how to become chefs de cuisine and mentor other leaders the way Chef David has mentored me.”