| Symon says casual concepts to offer tavern feel with a twist
By BRET
THORN
CLEVELAND
(June
01,
2009 )
—Celebrity chef Michael Symon is joining the ranks of high-end restaurateurs who have opened casual bars and burger joints with the signing of two deals to launch new outposts in the Cleveland area.  | | Michael Symon is following in the footsteps of other celebrity chefs by opening casual, lower-priced concepts. |
Symon, who is one of the five stars of television’s “Iron Chef America,” plans to open the B Spot in Woodmere, Ohio, and Bar Symon in Avon Lake, Ohio. He currently owns and operates the high-end restaurant Lola and the more casual Lolita in Cleveland as well as a rotisserie-focused restaurant in Detroit called Roast. Symon joins a number of fine-dining chefs and restaurateurs who have branched out into more casual fare, particularly burgers. Symon’s New York-based “Iron Chef” colleague Bobby Flay—together with business partner Laurence Kretchmer—co-owns and operates the three-unit Bobby’s Burger Palace, which was just listed in Travel + Leisure magazine as one of the world’s 10 best fast-food restaurants. San Francisco chef Hubert Keller has seen success with his Burger Bar at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, and New York restaurateur Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack—selling burgers and milk shakes—has lunchtime lines so long that the company launched a “shack cam” on the Internet so customers can see how long the line is before deciding whether to stand in it. In addition, New York’s Laurent Tourondel has opened outlets of his BLT Burger in Manhattan and Las Vegas. The latest fine-dining chef-operator to develop a casual burger joint is Daniel Boulud. DBGB, his first restaurant in New York’s more casual downtown area, is a reference to the now-defunct underground music club CBGB and stands for “Daniel Boulud great burgers,” or beer, or “bangers,” a British term for sausage. Boulud’s Dinex Group hopes to open DBGB in June. Apart from burgers, a sundae cart and house-made sausages inspired by those from around the world, the restaurant will have 22 beers on tap and two wines on tap—one red and one white—from wine made on nearby Long Island and blended in Brooklyn. DBGB’s beverage director, Colin Alevras, plans to charge somewhere between $5 and $7 for the wine. Symon’s B Spot is expected to offer a similar type of fare. “The concept is just a down and dirty dive bar with great grub,” Symon said. The B in the name stands for burgers, beer, bratwurst and fried bologna. The last is a personal favorite of Symon, who plans to cure the meat in-house. The 2,500 square-foot space in Woodmere, Ohio, is a former Cold Stone Creamery location. Symon said he is bringing in a smoker for chicken wings and old Harley-Davidson memorabilia for decor. Sandwiches will start at $5.50 and will not cost more than $8.50. The beer program will feature just 20 beers on tap, a single red and white wine, and hard alcohol. Symon hopes to open it in September. Bar Symon, on the other hand, will be “like an American version of Balthazar,” Symon said, referring to the popular New York restaurant that serves classic French brasserie food. Symon said the food at the 80-seat restaurant will be “our kind of twist on very Americana food,” such as truffled fried chicken, vegetable pot pie and smoked brisket. The restaurant will have 40 domestic beers on tap, with many from the Midwest, and another 60 beers in bottles. By contrast, he plans to offer about 50 wines. He anticipates a price point of $8 to $18. Bar Symon, which the chef-restaurateur hopes to open at the end of June, will be “a little more casual than Lolita,” he said. “People are going to be very comfortable coming in jeans and a t-shirt. It’s going to be a very tavern kind of place.”—bthorn@nrn.com  | Click Here to get more in-depth analysis.
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