Food

How Smokey Bones diversifies the menu to please many palates and control meat costs

Chef Peter Farrand created a “protein candy store” to give guests more flavor variety and value.

Peter Farrand, chief food and beverage innovation officer at Smokey Bones, felt that customers needed a little more variety to complement the restaurant’s signature barbecue items. 

So he diversified the menu, creating what he calls a “protein candy store,” where guests have the choice of many different cuts, global flavor profiles and formats. He also added more seafood choices and a veggie burger, as well as helped develop two virtual brands that provide additional platforms for experimentation. 

Peter Farrand

Peter Farrand

Listen as Farrand describes Smokey Bones’ new culinary direction and shares how he is controlling costs and managing supply, with meat prices and sourcing challenges on the rise.

You can subscribe to Menu Feed on Apple PodcastsSpotify, and we’re now on Alexa. Simply log into your Amazon account and look for “Menu Feed podcast” to enable the skill. Once it’s enabled, all you need to do to listen is say, “Alexa, play Menu Feed.”

You may also enable the daily short news podcast “RB Daily” by searching for the RB Daily podcast.

Members help make our journalism possible. Become a Restaurant Business member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.

Multimedia

Exclusive Content

Financing

The story of McDonald's strange year, in 2 parts

The Bottom Line: The quick-service giant’s dichotomous year was illustrated with back-to-back stories on the chain’s successful Grinch meal and its new value-focused franchising standards.

Technology

5 restaurant tech predictions for 2026

Tech Check: We envision more acquisitions and AI for restaurant tech in 2026. And we think this restaurant brand will start a podcast.

Financing

Unit economics are important, no matter the model

The Bottom Line: This edition of the restaurant finance newsletter looks at issues with Subway and Noodles, and why both brands have been undone by weak unit volumes.

Trending

More from our partners