Owner Ian Vaughn opened Rock 101 Patio Grill in March 2013.[/caption]Ian Vaughn said he has always been an entrepreneur at heart.
As an executive for Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers for 12 years, Vaughn said he loved the excitement and the risk that came with having fewer than 100 restaurants. As the company grew, he wanted more and more to start his own venture.
Vaughn said he has always loved the entertainment business and originally wanted to work in the casino industry. But with Vaughn being a restaurateur and his father being a career musician, the idea of a restaurant that incorporated music came more naturally. Plus, Vaughn and his family are from Louisiana, which is known for both its food and live music.
Vaughn and his father decided to open a restaurant together in Baton Rouge and called it Lava Cantina.
The two were in the process of opening Lava Cantina when Vaughn’s best friend called to tell him about an open restaurant space in Frisco. Vaughn visited the space and decided to give it a shot. In March 2013, he opened Rock 101 Patio Grill just a few weeks before Lava Cantina opened in Louisiana.
“I’m a sucker for opportunity, hence this place being here today,” Vaughn said, sitting inside Rock 101.
The 101 Nachos ($10) include housemade tortilla chips, queso and sour cream.[/caption]Although Vaughn said Rock 101 was originally supposed to be a side project while Lava Cantina was the “baby,” the Frisco restaurant has turned out to be a trendsetter when it comes to live music.
Rock 101 books bands that often play in places such as Deep Ellum in Dallas but rarely frequent Frisco. The restaurant is one of the few in the area that has a cover charge for many of its performances, but Vaughn said it is worth it for the quality of music.
“The live music is premium for what you should be getting in this area, especially in a place this size,” he said.
The shrimp po’boy ($13) includes fried shrimp on a sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes.[/caption]Vaughn said Rock 101’s menu has been constantly evolving and improving. Rock 101 offers a Creole-American fusion in its dishes, a nod to Vaughn’s Louisianan roots.
“Lava Cantina has the Creole-Mexican fusion, whereas this place we wanted to have something different to where you could have great bar food but in a gourmet package,” he said.
The large menu at Rock 101 caused issues with inconsistency in the dishes at first, Vaughn said. So he hired executive chef Patrick Stark to help the restaurant. The menu has recently been scaled back to focus on a few dishes, but the restaurant will be reintroducing more dishes in phases.
“It’s a completely from-scratch kitchen,” he said. “Whenever we rotate in our carrot cake every now and then, they literally shuck the carrots. When I say we make everything from scratch, we make everything from scratch.”
Vaughn said he would like to expand the Rock 101 brand, but for now he is focused on opening another Lava Cantina in The Colony this year.
“If [patrons] haven’t been here in a while, I definitely think they would be very excited about a lot of the different changes that we’ve had,” he said.
