Two former senior executives at Texas Land & Cattle and Lone Star Steakhouse have partnered to purchase the two restaurant chains, which are now combined under a new parent company called Day Star Restaurant Group.
The men behind the ownership shakeup are Scott Smith and Tim Dungan, who will serve as president and chief financial officer, respectively. Smith joined D CEO‘s media partner David Johnson on KRLD’s CEO Spotlight last night to discuss the sale, which was completed on Dec. 24 but not officially announced to the public or employees until Monday morning.
Day Star Restaurant Group now owns and operates 27 Texas Land & Cattle locations and 78 Lone Star locations. Twenty-three of the Texas Land & Cattle restaurants are located in Texas, but there surprisingly is not a single Lone Star Steakhouse in the Lone Star State. That’s something Smith hopes to change with a three-year strategic plan engineered to refresh each brand and drive new growth for both.
“If we’re going to have a name like ‘Lone Star Steakhouse,’ we’re going to work on getting a Lone Star Steakhouse here in Texas,” Smith told Johnson.
Significant changes to Texas Land & Cattle are under way, including remodels of existing locations (the first of which was just completed in Frisco) and a new menu introduced in September that features additional upscale side items. Additionally, the brand has partnered with Hartley Angus Ranch in Stephenville in order to ditch its previous practice of serving frozen steaks in favor of the Hartley premium black angus beef.
