In 2008 Fran Camaj transformed an old furniture store on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice, Calif., into an industrial-chic, farm-to-table restaurant with wood-oven pizzas, fresh seasonal pastas and other California-meets-Mediterranean creations by chef Travis Lett. Camaj, a former middle school science teacher who became a real estate speculator, named the restaurant Gjelina, after his mom, a transplant from Montenegro who helped finance the place. “I vastly underestimated what it was going to become,” he says of the restaurant’s rapid success.

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Persons: Fran Camaj, Abbot Kinney, Travis Lett, “, ” Organizations: Abbot Locations: Venice, Calif, California, Camaj, Montenegro