Bradley Ogden, a James Beard Award-winning chef, is one of the founders of Lark Creek Restaurant Group, the multiconcept operator of white-tablecloth restaurants like One Market in San Francisco and The Lark Creek Inn in the San Francisco Bay area. His Menlo Park, Calif.-based company, Bradley Ogden Hospitality, which was created in 2012 by Ogden in partnership with his son Bryan Ogden, along with operations specialist Tony Angotti, a former food-and-beverage director for the MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, has over the past year opened several other concepts, including fast-casual Funky Chicken in Houston in December 2013, and elevated-comfort-food Bradley’s Fine Diner in Houston in March, and another later in the year in Menlo Park.
Photo: Bradley's Fine Diner

Lexington, Ky.-based Fazoli’s debuted its fast-casual Venti Tre Modern Italian concept in Baltimore in March. Venti Tre, Italian for “23,” lets guests pick a piada, salad or pasta as the base of their entrée, then move down the line to customize their meals with at least 23 fresh toppings, such as Italian meatballs, rosemary-garlic steak or Tuscan lemon chicken. Specialties include sauces for pasta or piadas — like housemade “Pomodoro” or “vino bianco” — housemade salad dressings, focaccia croutons and fried capers.
Photo: Venti Tre Modern Italian

Louisville, Ky.-based Yum! Brands Inc. debuted in April fast-casual Super Chix in Arlington, Texas, offering premium chicken, flavored fries and frozen yogurt. The company said that, along with its Banh Shop concept, the brand was being treated as an innovation incubator.
Photo: Ron Ruggless

Taco Bell Corp. launched a new fast-casual taco concept called U.S. Taco Co. and Urban Taproom in Huntington Beach, Calif. It offered a simple lineup of 10 premium tacos, thick-cut fries and shakes. It was designed by an “intrepreneurial” team of young Taco Bell executives at the chain’s Irvine, Calif.-based headquarters. Taco Bell is a division of Yum! Brands Inc.
Photo: U.S. Taco and Urban Taproom

Yum! Brands Inc. debuted in September the first of two Vietnamese-inspired fast-casual sandwich shops called Banh Shop. A second has since opened in Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport’s Terminal D. “With Southeast Asian cuisine growing in popularity in the U.S., we saw an opportunity to design a unique fast-casual concept that emulates delicious Saigon street food, with a focus on the Vietnamese banh mi sandwich,” said Christophe Poirier, the Yum executive leading the Banh Shop project.
Photo: Ron Ruggless

Phoenix-based Fox Restaurant Concepts, parent to True Food Kitchen, opened in April the upscale fast-casual Flower Child concept near its headquarters. The 3,300-square-foot restaurant, with the full name of “Flower Child: A Food Revolution,” offers various levels of mix-and-match vegetarian food and other healthful fare.
Photo: Flower Child

Bee & Tea, a quick-service bubble tea shop, opened this summer in Chicago. Bee & Tea founder Mandy Calara said he intended to take a similar approach with bubble tea as he did with self-serve frozen yogurt, having grown his Chicago-based Forever Yogurt chain to 22 locations in five states, as well as two locations in China.
Photo: Bee & Tea

Homestyle Dining LLC, the Plano, Texas-based parent to the Ponderosa and Bonanza steakhouse chains, debuted in late May a new fast-casual concept called Bo's Steak & Grill. The restaurant in Lindale, Texas, targeted guests 21 to 45 years old, significantly younger than the demographic at Ponderosa and Bonanza. “It takes some of the best of legacy brands that we have and brings that to fast casual,” said Tom Sacco, chief executive of Homestyle Dining.
Photo: Bo's Steak & Grill

Restaurant impresario Phil Romano opened in July Potato Flats, a fast-casual concept based on baked white and sweet potatoes smashed onto a flat plate and topped with a variety of add-ons. Romano, who created such restaurants as Romano’s Macaroni Grill, Fuddruckers and Eatzi’s Market & Bakery, opened Potato Flats as the 10th eatery to open in the Trinity Groves restaurant incubator, just west of downtown Dallas.
Photo: Ron Ruggless

Uno Restaurant Holdings Corp. opened in June a new fast-casual concept, Uno Fresco, in Stoneham, Mass. The Boston-based parent company of Uno Pizzeria & Grill, the 131-unit casual-dining chain, said lunch and dinner customers order and pay at the counter and are handed a numbered wooden pizza peel to take to their table, where their orders are delivered. The menu features 19 pizzas ranging from Margherita deep dish to a thin-crust pie with prosciutto, fig and arugula, as well as classic deep-dish sausage, and mozzarella and thin-crust barbecue pork. They are priced at $5.99 for a seven-inch deep dish or 11-inch thin crust, and $15.99 for 10-inch deep dish or 16-inch thin crust.
Photo: Uno Fresco

A group of chefs and restaurateurs in San Diego debuted Bottega Americano in August, featuring a restaurant-meets-market similar to Eataly in New York and Chicago. Inspired by food halls and specialty food marketplaces of Europe, the 8,000-square-foot concept was developed by Giuseppe Ciuffa, founder and chief executive of San Diego catering firm Giuseppe Fine Restaurants & Fine Catering, and David Warner, a former chef at the ocean-view restaurant JRDN. Greg Van de Velde, a former manager of the fine-dining restaurant Bertrand at Mister A’s in San Diego, is also a partner, and serves as Bottega Americano’s general manager. Bottega Americano offers a collection of “culinary bars,” or food stations, as well as a cheese and charcuterie bar and a crudo bar with fresh oysters and seafood.
Photo: Bottega Americano

Scott Slater, founder and president of the Anaheim, Calif.-based Slater’s 50/50 burger chain, launched S&M Sausage and Meat in November in San Diego. Described as “an eclectic meatery,” S&M features a platform of sausages and house-smoked bacon with unusual flavors, such as Sriracha bacon, along with housemade charcuterie and sauces. It also experiments with exotic game, from the familiar, like venison, to the unexpected, such as beaver tacos.
Photo: S&M Sausage and Meat