What is Dish?

Dish is a new kind of restaurant, that offers the quality and creativity of higher priced restaurants, with the value and comfort of a neighborhood coffee shop. We focus on classic American food, the kind of recipes you might find in an old Sunset magazine or your grandmother’s cookbooks.

People who love a great breakfast restaurant will appreciate the things we do at Dish. Like roasting bone-in hams every morning and offering applewood-smoked bacon and hand-crafted sausages. Our apple oatcakes are made with fresh diced green apples, and our cornmeal jonnycakes are made with real corn.

We serve simple family-style food, yet we concentrate on quality. So something as simple as a BLT sandwich can be a pleasant surprise when it’s made with applewood smoked bacon, carefully toasted whole wheat bread and French fries cut from fresh Kennenbeck potatoes. Our lunch menu offers a great selection of American classics, with over ten luncheon salads, gourmet sandwiches, awesome burgers, fresh seafood, pastas, chicken and steak. And most entrees are under $10.00, so we offer value along with creativity and variety.

The dinner menu features home-style traditional American favorites such as roasted ham with macaroni and greens, pork chops with apple chutney, and slow braised brisket of beef with bourbon-barbeque sauce.

A full bar and wine list is available, along with an excellent choice of beers and wines by the glass. (Why shouldn’t you be able to get a good glass of wine in a casual restaurant?) There are also fresh squeezed juices and boutique sodas.

Of course there is a great kid’s menu with lots of creative, healthy choices.

And to top it all off, we make all our own pastries from scratch, All-American favorites such as banana cream pie, strawberry-rhubarb pie, and deep dish apple pie.

Kevin Finch is the creative force behind DISH.

“I just really felt like there was a huge need for an old fashioned family style restaurant that focused on quality and creativity. The three-meal-a-day restaurant category has become dominated by the chains, but over the years they have just gotten worse and worse. They have completely lost sight of quality and creativity.”

“Casual restaurants shouldn’t have to be that way. At Dish, we believe very strongly that it is possible to offer delicious, creative American food and still offer great value.”

Mr. Finch graduated from Occidental college in 1977. But after working in the advertising industry for five years, he became restless to return to his roots in the restaurant business, where he had worked throughout high school and college.

He spent his early years working for hotels and restaurants in California’s wine country. “Working in Sonoma in the late 80’s was an exciting time. There was a great synergy between local farmers, winemakers and chefs. The result was simple, delicious food, based on quality and good fundamentals. Freshness, simplicity, quality, and creativity – these are qualities that everyone understands, regardless of price or concept”.

In the twenty years since then he has worked for a variety of restaurants and hotels, including Border Grill, City, Twin Palms, University Restaurant Group, and Ojai Valley Inn. Most recently he was a partner in the Border Grill group of restaurants in southern California and Las Vegas.

“To be honest, when I opened Dish I was just looking for a place where I could get a good grilled cheese sandwich for my kids, and a decent cup of coffee for me. Then we thought, wouldn’t it be great if you could go someplace and get a really great BLT, and maybe a decent glass of wine. It grew from there.”

Interested in partnering in Dish?

Dish was conceived as a neighborhood restaurant that could be expanded into a variety of different markets and locations. The company was designed with growth in mind, and it is our vision that someday there might be many Dish restaurants serving delicious, home-style American food. We believe that many communities would be well-served by the concept of a quality-oriented, three-meal-a-day family restaurant, and we are interested in partnering with the right kinds of developers and investors that can help us grow successfully. If you are a potential investor or developer with a location in mind for a Dish restaurant, contact Kevin Finch at 818-790-5355 or via email .