Laziz Kitchen, known as much for its contemporary take on Lebanese cuisine as for its beloved co-founders, Moudi Sbiety and Derek Kitchen, is opening a second location.
The new location — at 1076 Fort Union Blvd. in Midvale — had its soft opening on May 25. It takes over the space once occupied by the Indian street food restaurant Curry Up Now.
Sbiety and Kitchen (who famously inspired Guy Fieri to describe Laziz as a “pop and pop restaurant”) opened Laziz’s first brick and mortar restaurant the Central Ninth neighborhood, at 912 Jefferson St. W., in 2017.
“The pandemic took a real number on the business overall,” Kitchen said. “We survived, and we’re grateful for that. But it was challenging. And I think the pandemic taught us one thing — which is that everything is up for renegotiation.”
Last Christmas, Kitchen said, Sbiety came to him and said, “We’ve got to do something different.” Kitchen immediately began looking for business partners, first connecting with John Netto and his family, who own Curry Up Now, which previously occupied Laziz’s new space in Midvale.
“John is my new partner in this, and we’re moving forward to do more with Laziz,” Kitchen said. “Laziz has a life of its own, right? And I wanted to keep that alive.”
Blake and Jennifer Hannon, who previously worked with Laziz on the company’s packaged food items, were also brought on as business partners.
“It’s our favorite restaurant,” Blake Hannon said. “When they approached us to be partners and help take it into a more professional market and into multiple locations, we jumped at the chance. We like them, we love the concept, we believe in the concept, and we believe that Midvale is ready for this. Not just downtown Salt Lake. So we want to bring this food, which is so popular down there, to suburbia.”
Laziz Midvale will serve the same menu as the Central Ninth restaurant, including popular dishes like classic Lebanese hummus, the salad bowl, fried cauliflower florets served with tahini or garlic sauce, the lamb burger and zaatar roasted veggie bowl. The only change will be the addition of a kids’ menu, which will include a grilled cheese on sourdough, mac ‘n’ cheese, meatball sliders, chicken fingers and falafel sliders, all served with either fries or sweet potato fries.
Hannon added that Laziz Midvale will launch a dessert menu, which will eventually be added to the menu at Laziz’s Salt Lake City location.
“We have croissant beignets with three different dipping sauces — hazelnut chocolate, raspberry compote and a honey cinnamon butter,” he said. “We like to call this our dessert version of our pitas.”
Kitchen and Hannon both expressed hope that Laziz can continue to grow and add locations throughout Salt Lake County.
“Salt Lake County is going to grow by 66% in the next couple of decades. We’re not giving people outside of Salt Lake City enough credit,” Kitchen said. “With the cost of living in Salt Lake City, and Salt Lake County, people are forced to move to the suburbs. They deserve to have access to good, healthy food as well. You think about all the immigrants we’re welcoming, and the refugees we’re welcoming, people who go on missions down to Brazil, or southeast Asia, and they come back and realize... we can do better in Salt Lake. Laziz is an opportunity to grow with the community.”
Hours of operation are also the same: Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday noon to 8 p.m.
