By Susan de Castro McCann

Redstone Review Editor

LYONS – There is a whole new taste going on at On the Rocks Southern Bistro, 228 Main St., as well as some new colors inside.

Tina Schooler, who owns the bistro with her husband Bob, recently made Aaron Lenz the new general manager and hired Matthew Grimsley as the new executive chef. A new line chef has also been hired. Lenz is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in New York and has a degree in restaurant management. He worked in Atlanta where he managed five restaurants. Grimsley is a graduate of the Art Institute of Colorado. Both have traveled extensively across the country, accumulating a vast culinary experience prior to settling in the area.

The new menu offers some new entries, but most of the changes are using fresh produce and making all the food from scratch. “Our new menu offers more farm-to-table produce from local farms and more made-from-scratch items,” said Tina Schooler. “This is what I wanted to do from the very beginning. We are now working with Stonebridge Farm and the farm is growing some greens for us. We want to use as much local produce, dairy, meat, chicken as possible. We want everything to taste just like Mom made it in both entrees and desserts. And last but not least we are making an effort to be more sustainable. We have installed a water-efficient dish washing equipment and are saving food scraps for the Lyons Farmette’s chickies and of course we’re recycling our cans, bottles and boxes. There are many more changes to come.”

New manager Aaron Lenz is very excited. “We will plan the menus around what’s in season,” he said. “For example fried zucchini blossoms with a little goat cheese is wonderful, but that season only last a few weeks. We plan to have lots of specials.” Since Lenz also has a culinary degree he will be very involved in planning the menus and specials with chef Matt Grimsley.

Schooler said that the restaurant will remain a southern bistro, offering southern comfort food such as fried chicken, cheesy grits, and biscuits along with more traditional prime rib, top sirloin, salmon, soups, salads, sandwiches and a variety of homemade pies and desserts.

“We are working on a new menu,” said Schooler. “We are going to get as many things locally as we can. We are now getting our bread from a bakery in Denver. Matt is just full of new ideas. He started telling me his ideas the day he started. (June 21)” Schooler said they plan to make more changes soon.

Lenz said that they will try to get all their food for the restaurant from a 50-mile radius around Lyons. “I love small towns,” he said. “You can do really high-end food for a reasonable price. You don’t have the huge overhead that you have in big cities,” he said. “We just started offering fresh hand-cut fries with different toppings.”

The fries are now all hand-cut and served in a wire cone with a choice of dipping sauces on the side. Try the fries sprinkled with parmesan cheese. It will make you happy.

The bistro will close for a couple of days to do some light remodeling. Expect some new colors.

The restaurant is open Monday through Sunday and serves brunch starting at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. The restaurant opens at 11 a.m. on weekdays. The bistro recently opened the patio for outdoor seating. For more information, call 303-823-6833.

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