Cozy, delicious California restaurant chain Lazy Dog coming to NJ

Once upon a time in the land of Moorestown, New Jersey, there stood a Tex-Mex restaurant by the name of Don Pablo’s.

It closed in 2018. Then a year later, that entire chain folded. The final one operating in the United States was in Deptford, New Jersey, and it quietly closed on June 23, 2019.

So that space in Moorestown occupied by Don Pablo’s until 2018 has sat vacant ever since. Through the long pandemic, not a good time for any restaurant to open, it sat waiting for new life.

That new life is finally coming.

Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar is taking over the site and plans to open in 2025. What are they? Lazy Dog is a comfortable, family-friendly fast-casual chain out of California that launched in 2022. In that short time they’re up to over 50 locations in nine states.

New Jersey will be their 10th.

SEE ALSO: Legendary NJ hot dog joint returns to Ocean County

Lazy Dog locations are designed to look, and feel, like some Wyoming lodge, a Rocky Mountain vacation, with furnishings and artwork a rancher and cowboy could admire. Very friendly, comfortable and cozy.

If the food is also as good as I’ve heard you may not want to leave! Their menu attempts “comfort food with a twist” with dishes like BBQ bison and even spaghetti and ‘beetballs’ (vegetarian meatballs).

Their five-cheese grilled cheese sandwich on sourdough bread sounds amazing as does their pot roast beef dip with au jus. Take a look at the website and you’ll see it’s very kid-friendly but also has a full bar with to-die-for drinks.

This will be the first Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar location in the state and it will boast more than 9,000 square feet accommodating 190 indoor guests. But there will also be room for 60 more outdoor guests with a patio and a fire pit.

Also, how fun is it that they’ll be selling delicious frozen take-home options that are packaged just like the old retro TV dinners? People are going to love this place.

Look for it next year in Moorestown on Nixon Drive.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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