Ryan Miner, General Manager
Ryan Miner is the General Manager of the Lion & Bull. He is a Fairfax County native and graduated from George Mason University. He is currently a 1st Lieutenant in the Virginia National Guard and served in Operation Iraqi Freedom as a Combat Engineer. He worked for NARDI Construction as a Project Superintendent for several local projects before coming to Lion & Bull. His wife Katy is a popular regional entertainer and has a successful vocal teaching business.
Audrey Miner is the CFO and stabilizing force behind Lion & Bull. Audrey is originally from the Pittsburgh, PA area, graduated from Penn State and moved to Fairfax County to become a police officer. Audrey retired from the Fairfax County Police Department in 2003 after 30 years of service. She attained the rank of Major and was the commander of both the Criminal Investigations Bureau and Internal Affairs, among other assignments at previous ranks. After retiring from the police department, Audrey trained police officers in Kosovo, hired trainers for police academies in Afghanistan and Iraq and several years ago became a senior fraud investigator for the world’s largest credit union, which she continues when not working at the Lion & Bull. She enjoys many pursuits, but her new 85 lb. English Golden Retriever, Hunter, takes up most of her “spare” time.
After living in Los Angeles for 6 years, Jefferson was lured back to the East Coast to be a part of the Lion & Bull team. The Miner name, a love of food … lots of food, and a 10-year career in website management make him the ideal candidate to oversee the Lion & Bull website and to perform other very important duties, such as taste testing new menu items. Although mostly working behind the scenes, Jefferson can be spotted at the Lion & Bull on weekend nights. During the week, Jefferson works full-time for IDI Multimedia in Gainesville.
Recently married, Jefferson spends his free time with his beautiful bride, running, working on his house, freelancing, and pondering the woeful Washington Redskins.
Jefferson would like to thank Nate Piper for his countless hours of assistance with maintaining the Lion & Bull website.
Brandon Loudenslager, Asisstant General Manager
Born August 1972, Brandon Loudenslager was raised in a small town in Central Pennsylvania that probably has a smaller population than most high schools in Northern Virginia. Brandon moved away from his small town in 1990 to study biology at West Virginia University and in 1993 decided to move to Ocean City, Maryland to play professional beach volleyball.
He prides himself on the love of his family and the love of entertaining. With over 20 years of food & beverage and hospitality experience and having performed every aspect of the industry except cooking, he certainly knows how to make you feel “right at home”. But don’t let the fact that Brandon hasn’t cooked in restaurants fool you; he actually has a considerable passion for cooking, coming from generations of male cooks in his family. Brandon notes, “I guess the Loudenslager men like to cook because it gets us out of doing the dishes!”
He spent a majority of those 20 years as he says, “behind the mahogany”, bartending at night clubs in Ocean City, Maryland and Washington DC before he found his home in Northern Virginia restaurants. This is where Brandon found his true calling as a manager. He says his responsibilities as a manager came easily to him, as his whole life he learned to lead by example. “Respect is something that is earned, not demanded.”
Now as Assistant General Manager at Lion & Bull, he runs the restaurant during the day and moonlights as a full time professional Real Estate Agent with RE/MAX Unlimited in Bristow. He specializes in bank-owned and pre-foreclosure properties and has been helping good people out of bad situations for almost 5 years.
When asked, “Where do you find the time to have fun?” his reply: “I believe that having fun is fulfillment; I have two careers that allow me the ability to serve people and the greater good and if you truly love what you do, you have fun all the time.”
