Ryan O’Melveny Wilson promoted to CEO of Lawry’s Restaurants Inc., parent of Lawry’s The Prime Rib, SideDoor, the Tam O’Shanter, Five Crowns and Lawry’s Carvery

The former CMO, a trained chef and butcher, is a fourth-generation member of the founding family

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

August 12, 2020

1 Min Read

Lawry's Restaurants CEO Ryan O'Melveny WilsonRyan Tanaka

Ryan O’Melveny Wilson has been named CEO of Lawry’s Restaurants Inc., succeeding his uncle, Richard Roger Frank, who will transition to the position of executive chairman of the board, the company said Wednesday.

Wilson is also the great-grandson of Lawry’s founder, Lawrence Frank, and represents the fourth generation of that family running the company, which includes Lawry’s The Prime Rib in Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas and Beverly Hills, Calif.; SideDoor in Chicago; the Tam O’Shanter in Los Angeles; Five Crowns in Corona del Mar, Calif.; Lawry’s Carvery in Costa Mesa, Calif., and Lawry’s International & Licensing, which comprises seven Lawry’s The Prime Rib locations in East Asia.

Wilson was named the company’s chief marketing and strategy officer in 2018, and before that was its vice president and executive chef.

Before joining the family business 12 years ago, Wilson worked in restaurant kitchens including Quince in San Francisco, La Toque in Napa, Calif., and Gramercy Tavern in New York City before training in Italy under butcher Dario Cecchini at Antica Macelleria Cecchini in the Tuscan town of Panzano. He then joined Lawry’s Restaurants to work in the group’s kitchens and to do research & development for SideDoor.

Lawry's Restaurants Inc., is headquartered in Pasadena, Calif.

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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, 2^nd 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]

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