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Front Burner Restaurants rebrands itself as FB Society as Jack Gibbons is named CEO

Randy Dewitt anointed chairman as the group plans expansion of Whiskey Cake and Sixty Vines

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

December 16, 2020

2 Min Read
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Front Burner Restaurants LLC, the Dallas-based multi-concept operator, has rebranded itself as FB Society and has announced executive appointments that were made earlier this year.

Front Burner Founder and former CEO Randy DeWitt is chairman of the newly branded company, and Jack Gibbons, who was president of Front Burner, is now CEO of FB Society.

Additionally, the company has teamed up with marketing consulting firm R Circle and named its owner, Rae Phillips-Luther, chief brand officer.

Phillips-Luther is the former chief marketing officer of Jamba Juice and Zoe’s Kitchen, and she also owns a fast-casual breakfast and lunch restaurant in Frisco, Texas, called UP Inspired Kitchen.

In a release announcing the rebranding, DeWitt said the relaunched company reflects lessons learned during the coronavirus pandemic and will emphasize the experiential nature of the group’s restaurants.

Among those restaurants are nine-unit Whiskey Cake, focusing on craft cocktails and locally sourced comfort food; four-unit wine-forward restaurant Sixty Vines; two-unit Mexican Sugar, featuring Mexican Food and tequila-based cocktails; three-unit Southern restaurant Ida Claire; Texan cuisine-focused Haywire; The Ranch, which has Texan cuisine and live music; and a slider concept called Son of a Butcher, which debuted this month.

Related:Whiskey Cake Kitchen & Bar names Ray Risley president and chief operating officer

It also operates a food hall and restaurant incubator in Dallas called Legacy Hall, a catering company, an event venue called Bingham House, a craft brewery called Unlawful Assembly Brewing Co., a non-profit organization called Furlough Kitchen, and The Ranch at Las Colinas in Irving, Texas.

“While so many brands were forced to retract, or even shut down during the current crisis, we made a decision that Front Burner would not only survive, but emerge smarter, stronger and more cohesive,” DeWitt said. “I couldn’t be more excited about the future of our company, the brands we have created and those we’ve yet to dream of, especially knowing that my great friend and partner, Jack Gibbons, is at the helm as CEO. Jack has long been recognized for his unmatched creative energy and operational expertise that push culinary and hospitality boundaries. FB Society is in extraordinary hands.”

The company said that FB Society would expand Whiskey Cake and Sixty Vines in 2021, and would also launch a new chicken tender concept to be called Buttercup.

As part of its rebranding, FB Society is launching a podcast, BTS: Behind the Society, “designed to engage both the team and guests and to showcase innovators, disruptors and haymakers in the restaurant space,” the company said. 

Related:2018 RH 25: Front Burner Restaurants L.P.

Gibbons said he was looking forward to leading the rebranded company.

“While we are fully aware that the pandemic is far from over, I’ve never been more excited about the future of our company, our brands and our team,” he said. “Randy and I have long seen our mission as designing experiences never imagined, and while we have made tremendous strides already, I’m confident in saying ‘you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!’”

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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