By Paul Hughes
Chris Simms hopes to teach an old dog new tricks.
The old dog in this case is the restaurant business, the boneyard of many a failed idea.
The latest trick: Lazy Dog Cafe, a restaurant with a diverse menu and lively bar in Westminster. Think a smaller version of a Yard House or Cheesecake Factory.
Founder Simms has restaurants in his blood. His dad started Tustin-based Mimi’s Cafe, now part of Ohio’s Bob Evans Farms Inc.
He’s looking to open two more Lazy Dogs based on the original in Westminster. A second is set to open in the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance in early December. A third is due at Stadium Promenade in Orange this spring.
Simms said he’s scouting for at least six more spots, enough to fill the development pipe for three years. His plan is to open one every six months.
“We’ll do two a year for the next couple years, then maybe push it to three,” Simms said.
The original Lazy Dog is 6,800 square feet. The next two are bigger. The one in Orange, next to Honda Center, is set to be 8,700 square feet, not counting a patio.
Simms is taking over a spot left by Gordon Biersch Brewery.
Each restaurant costs about $3.5 million to open. Revenue at Westminster is more than $5 million a year, Simms said.
An eclectic menu, an open invite to any kind of diner and good service are the formula, according to Simms.
Standards With a Twist
Lazy Dog serves standards: salads, burgers and pizza. Executive chef and part owner Gabriel Caliendo adds signature appetizers,walnut-crusted brie, wok-fried calamari and three kinds of hummus,plus dishes such as ginger soy salmon and garlic lamb shank.
Some of the standards come with twists.
One salad mixes smoked bacon, goat cheese, dried cranberries and candied walnuts with lettuces and tomato. A burger has blue cheese butter. Another is made of Ahi tuna. A pizza comes with chicken, smoked gouda, cilantro and a honey-chipotle barbecue sauce.
“No one could go here and not find something to eat,” said Ron Paul, founder of restaurant consultant Technomic Inc. in Chicago.
There also are Asian accents, harking from Simms’ days at P.F. Chang’s China Bistro Inc. He cut his canines there as a sous chef and manager, opening several restaurants.
Simms also spent a couple of years at Mimi’s Cafe, working with his dad.
Thomas Simms sold Mimi’s to Bob Evans Farms in 2004 for about $185 million. The elder Simms is a partner in Lazy Dog.
Chris Simms has given a chunk of ownership to operations supervisor Roshan Mendis.
Brother Mike Simms also is involved.
Lazy Dog hopes to attract the business luncher, the family out to dinner and the sports buddies on the make for TVs covering every corner of the bar.
Girls’ night out also might fly, with martinis all around.
The inside of a Lazy Dog tries to be interesting.
At Westminster, you can hit the bar to the right, the patio to the left, or tables and booths in the center.
And of course, there are dogs: paintings of dogs, photos of dogs and a fireplace where your dog might sleep.
Your dog actually can come. The other two restaurants should be the same, Chris Simms said.
At first, Simms said it bothered him when people came in and asked, “Where are your other locations?”
He said he’d been striving for unique, yet people wanted to know where the copies were.
Then he said he realized: “They said it because they got the feeling we knew what we were doing.”
Lazy Dog does somewhat look like its planning puppies:
Cool name? Check.
Big menu? Check.
Large pads in malls, strip centers and other busy areas? Check.
Bar with at least three big TVs so no matter where you sit you can see the game? Check.
Appealing to as many as possible while keeping a distinct feel for each group? Check.
A multimillion-dollar expansion in the next five years?
That’s the plan.
Simms said he’s looking to target Lazy Dogs in between restaurants averaging $10 a meal and more fancy places at $18 to $20 a meal.
The challenge: If you’re trying to be different, and there are lots of you, are you different anymore?
“Some people will feel let down by growth,” Simms said. “They’ll think, ‘Oh, it’s not quirky anymore.'”
Simms said he believes it can be done, keeping quality while growing into a chain.
The secret, he said, lies in hiring the right people,”people who truly care about the well-being of the guests,” as he puts it.
“We hire personalities,” Simms said. “We can teach them the restaurant business.”
He points to a “neighborhood approach” to each restaurant, where the location takes on some of the scent of the area,”where each one has its own identity and feel, but people know the quality of the food and service and atmosphere will be the same.”
The question is, can this dog hunt?
