I appreciate the benefits of the “standard” method. You get a more personalized start time, you get more personalized experience. But you get that experience out of all the other tasting menu places in the city, in america, in the world, from Saison to Crenn to Protoge down here on the peninsula.
[ Sidebar: Japan’s omakase system doesn’t work our standard tasting menu way, it works the old lazy bear way. Two seatings, be on time, chef makes everything in a batch and announces. Means you can run a small house - chef + one assistant - no servers - but they have slightly different economics. I did have a very interesting conversation a few weeks back in Japan with the guy next to me at one of those meals. ]
Lazy Bear’s group dining had drawbacks, but it also had plusses - the chef announcing the course with a level of detail and passion that servers are hard pressed to replicate, meeting and talking to new people about food and life. I came to believe having one place that did it differently - with plusses and minuses - was an OK thing. I really love my diversity, Lazy Bear had a different model, and feel a bit of a loss when some is lost.
I remember a place in Atlanta that had a different model too - it was like State Bird but with a chef who made a dish came around to the table with a cart, so you could rap with them, and they would ask you how you liked the dish, and thus they constantly adjusted the dish. The owner actually required them to change the dish every week. In some sense it doesn’t make sense to have someone with chef skills spending time serving, but I found that personal touch incredibly different and a breath of fresh air - I’ll always remember that meal. (I remember it was called “something and something” and I think it had an americana or western theme).
The first meal I had at lazy bear was at their warehouse pop-up thing at Chicken John’s on Chavez. There was some REALLY LONG pause - like 45 minutes - between courses. I ended up sitting and talking with David the head chef after service - I sent back half a bottle of a fairly rare wine (and went to the corner liquor store for a new bottle during one of those pauses), so he came out and chilled with me. He said it was a nightmare service - two cooks no-showed, and his general staff level survives one no show, not two. I found the whole experience more quirky and intimate - the 45 minute gap allowed me to go hang out on a couch in the back garden and rap with the guy grilling the Monterey spot prawns for the next course. As someone who has mostly removed tasting menus from my general eating pattern (more the fact that my SO / main dining partner dislikes the rigidity in amount of food), this one still had a warm spot in my heart.
I also happen to know one of the investors in LB. I happened to run into him - he also invested in my company - and he was saying a few years ago, probably about when the switch happened - that ticket sales had slowed down a bit and they were going to need to make changes.
I can appreciate being in the standard mold has more commercial viability and less friction, and I would rather have lazy bear succeed than fail, but I’m sad sometimes when a new concept that I happen to like doesn’t make it in the broader world. Not surprised, perhaps, but a bit sad.
It’s a classic problem in commercial art - be different, but not too different 
