Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Summerlin South

Great food in a warm, friendly environment! We sat on the patio for lunch this afternoon, bringing our dog Newt along with us for the ride. The weather was gorgeous, and the patio had an open, comfortable atmosphere. We were seated quickly, despite the busy Sunday lunch rush! Our waitress brought us all water (doggybowl included). I was happy to find a spot we could all have lunch together! Other dogs on the patio were sweet, making it a great social opportunity for our pup.

As we settled in in, my immediate impression was of quality and care. The menus have leather covers, and are beautifully illustrated in a watercolour style for Spring. I love that their menus open with a story on the family behind the business, and have an emphasis on seasonally sourced foods. It even has a little lunar calendar in the back! Everything at the table from the plates to the menu stands were solid, themed beautifully, and unique.

We ordered small plates to share, a couple of salads, some lovely mixed drinks, and desserts to finish it off! Everything was seasoned well, with flavours playing off each other in a dish to make each bite a well rounded experience. Portions were perfectly sized, even sharing the small plates among 4 people. I ordered the green goddess salad, which was delightful and fresh! The watermelon radish was so good, and the goddess dressing was perfectly balanced between tart, herbaceous, and sweet. The feta-stuffed zucchini flower it comes with was delicious and unique! Paired with sips of the rosè elderflower punch and the blueberry lemon cocktails, the whole meal all felt refreshing and bright.

Though that's not the end, not without mentioning dessert! We shared the peach pie, vanilla custard, and lemon cake between us. The pie was my favourite, with a great crisp pastry filled with peach and berries. It wasn't too sweet, which is just right for my taste, though it did have a healthy scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on top! The vanilla custard was my next fave, garnished with fresh blueberries and honey (and bee pollen!) to give it an edge of sweet lemonberry bliss. The lemoncake comes third only by virtue of being rich! The cream, ice cream, and moist cake all together made it decadent, and the huckleberry sauce surrounding it lifted it up just right. I do wish it had a more intense lemon flavour, though!

All in all, Lazy Dog was a great stop for us on a busy Sunday. I wish I had taken more photos, but good food has a tendency to absorb your attention! I'm looking forward to coming back in other seasons to see what they...

Lazy Dog provides us with a perfect example of average. Good, but not great. A true 3 star restaurant in every way.

Let me break it down for you:

The food is good. It is not great, but it doesn't try to be. The architects of this place have sought out to appeal to the largest percentage of tastes. All the right options, all the proper ingredients so that everyone can find something. It is the "smart business" way of doing restaurants, find the middle of the road dishes that appeal to the greatest number of people. This approach is very popular with the large corporate chain restaurants. The service is good, but does not stand apart. Great service can only come from one place - it comes from servers who love what they do. There are several ways servers get to the point where they love what they do: great money, great schedule, great coworkers, great food, great management, great clientele, great location and great reputation are all factors that can affect how servers perform. This typically occurs when there are more "great" than "good" factors in this list. From the looks of it, Lazy Dog must have mostly "good". The prices are poor, to say the least. Yes, I understand that the location is prime and rents are most likely higher than many areas on the east side of town (no offense to East Siders). But no matter how you try to paint your picture, people always have a sense of value when they eat out. We all have this inner voice that can accurately balance the price point of the meal to the overall quality/quantity. A good tasting meal that comes in large portions and is inexpensive is always a winner. A good tasting meal that comes in small portions and costs and arm and a leg is always a disappointment, except in the case where it adds a notch to our culinary bedpost (i.e. a meal at Masa in New York City, which costs $585 per person).

Lazy Dog will be a success, mostly because of the disposable income crowd who, amazingly enough, always have the worst taste when it comes to food (yes, I did mean to offend them).

Lazy Dog will always follow along with its namesake and keep making dishes that are just average. They will never takes risks, they will never go out on a limb. Their offerings will be good but not great, the prices will always be too high for their portions and their service will always be mediocre...

...because that is the great American business model for success...

We really liked Lazy Dog..however the 2 times in the last year we decided to come here (the large gap is due to poor experience only) the food was terrible. The first time 75 percent of the food came out cold. The second time (this was just last week) again id say 75 percent of the food came out cold. Both times we were comped some of it to try and rectify the situations but geeez....it was awful experiences. Their ingredients and creative dishes used to keep us coming back but the food prep and cooking staff need further training on their food preparation and timing. To have a burger and chicken ice cold....is gross. Same with hush puppies. COLD in the middle of each. Gross. The only thing that was hot and good was the lemon pepper tots. I had my meal in sessions bc they took back the burger when it came out cold the first time. It came out a second time over done...like burnt. With the cheese somehow cold. It was somewhat melted at the edges..maybe with a torch? So the cheese was still mainly cold. It was also in extreme need of seasoning. The server was fine and friendly. The whole restaurant appears to need reorganized in the fact there is no way the "aisles" w the bar stool seating L shape into the other dining areas is up to code because there is no way to exit quickly. You have to wait for someone to walk past before you can walk in the opposite direction, there is barely room for that. So while you try to walk out or to the bathroom, you have to wait for opposing "traffic" to come by first and everyone looks like they are struggling to get through the tight areas. The one sink in the bathroom comes out with extremely HOT water and the one is ice cold. Meaning 2 sinks, 2 polar opposite temperatures. Thank God my daughter used the cold one and I the extremely hot one...again this seems like a liability bc I don't just mean really warm. I mean HOT. Overall, as much as I loved more creative dishes like the bison meatloaf and tots and ribs and such. Going back here is just simply not worth it. I wouldn't recommend it until they make some needed changes and improvements. It used to be a good to when we lived in Summerlin and then when we moved north and visited. But not any more. Save your time and your money and go some place else until they fix...