Lazy Bear Experimenting With Walk-In, A La Carte Service

Hot on the heels of its first anniversary, Lazy Bear is still innovating. The highly-coveted, ticketed dinner may get a little more accessible soon: chef/owner David Barzelay is currently testing out a la carte service, walk-in in the upstairs loft. "Coming down the pipe we plan to offer beverage service upstairs after the second seating comes downstairs," Barzelay told Eater. "That could take a couple forms, including a la carte service for walk-ins and/or a beverage tasting upstairs with snacks." Barzely isn’t sure yet when the service will be finalized — "it could still be many months until we figure it all out," he said — but the restaurant has already started "pilot programming" the service. The change is reminiscent of The Progress and the Saison Salon, both of which ease the barrier of entry to their exclusive, highly-sought-after experiences with more approachable a la carte options at their bars. Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, Barzelay is trying out exclusive $315/person dinner tickets, too.

Summing it all up, Barzelay said he’s constantly changing things at the restaurant based on feedback.

"You come up with a concept, and there might be a broad range of directions it can take, and you have to feel out your customers and your staff and continually kind of readjust the direction in which you're headed based on that feedback and on the direction people want to take it," he said. "We’re pushing so hard to improve that we find if we look at things we were doing even six months or a year ago, it ends up looking pretty dated to us and no longer exciting and up to the level of execution we currently want to do now."

Which means lots more changes to come. Keep up.