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How Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar is blazing a trail

Founder and CEO Chris Simms strives to give guests a unique experience through a "next generation" approach to the menu, ambience and hospitality.

Patricia Cobe, Senior Editor

May 6, 2021

This edition of Menu Feed is brought to you by Ventura Foods® | Hidden Valley®.
Hidden Valley Ranch

Chris Simms is founder and CEO of Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar, a casual-dining chain with 39 units. Simms and his team strive to make Lazy Dog the “next generation of casual dining” by delivering a unique experience through the concept's menu mix, ambience and hospitality. 

Instead of paring down the menu during the pandemic, the kitchen accelerated innovation, creating chef-designed TV dinners to go, partnering with a craft brewery to offer canned beers and starting a virtual concept called Jolene’s Wings. Inventive bar food is one of the concept’s trademarks, and a variety of creative snacks and small plates rotate regularly.

Chris Simms 
Chris Simms

Listen as Simms shares how Lazy Dog will continue building on these innovations and satisfying customers’ cravings as the chain grows. 

Find more episodes of this podcast on Spotify.

About the Author

Patricia Cobe

Senior Editor

Pat plans and executes the menu sections of Restaurant Business and FoodService Director, covering food and beverage trends, Menu R&D, profiles of chefs and restaurateurs and Technomic research. She also contributes to the digital content of both RB and FSD and is editor of two weekly e-newsletters, Recipe Report and On the Menu. Pat’s weekly podcast, MenuFeed, covers a wide range of menu topics through interviews with chefs and operators.

Pat came to Winsight from Hearst, where she was an executive editor. She is the co-author of the Mompreneurs series of books as well as two cookbooks. She graduated from Cornell University and earned a Masters in Journalism from Boston University. She is active in several professional organizations, including Les Dames d’Escoffier and the International Foodservice Editorial Council (IFEC), and serves as a judge for the James Beard Media Awards.

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