Lot54 Casual Kitchen opened this week at Village Square on Elmwood Avenue in Brighton, N.Y., taking over the former home of Joey B's at Brickstone.

The independent concept pairs two Rochester food-scene operators: Brandon Wiggins, founder of Amazing Grains Bakery in Fairport, runs the kitchen, and David Watkins, whose resume includes running Hicks and McCarthy in Pittsford, serves as general manager.

Wiggins built Amazing Grains over a decade before selling the business a few years ago. The bakery's wholesale arm supplied more than 100 restaurants with daily bread, giving him deep sourcing and production relationships in the market before he moved into restaurant kitchens.

"We built up a great community bakery, but it also supplied over 100 restaurants with bread on the table every day," Wiggins said.

His well-known "salty bread" from the Amazing Grains days appears regularly on Lot54's menu — an example of an operator carrying a proven signature product into a new concept rather than building a menu from scratch.

The partnership formed last year, when Watkins called Wiggins. The two had previously worked together in the local restaurant industry. Watkins said they identified a gap in Brighton's full-service segment: the area lost sit-down options such as Zeb's and lacked a replacement.

"We asked, 'What is this area missing?' There used to be Zeb's and other things you could get out here. I don't want to say the phrase 'fine dining,' because I think that gets thrown around too much. It's going to be an elevated experience for dinner. We have pizzas, sandwiches, salads. You can get steak frites here, but you can also get a Caesar salad," Watkins said.

That menu architecture — steak frites positioned alongside pizza, sandwiches and Caesar salad — signals a broad, occasion-flexible pricing strategy aimed at capturing both special-occasion dinners and everyday visits.

For menu development, Wiggins draws on time spent in South Carolina and Alabama.

"Regional American cuisine with a lot of Southern influence. Whether you're going out for breakfast, lunch, dinner – for an occasion or just because you don't want to cook, just being in the conversation. That's what we're trying to do here," he said.

The rollout is phased. Lot54 currently serves dinner Wednesday through Saturday. Breakfast and lunch service begins October 13, operating Monday through Saturday, and the team plans to add Sunday brunch later this fall. The staggered schedule lets the kitchen prove dinner execution before adding three more dayparts.

If the full week of breakfast, lunch, brunch and dinner service takes hold, Lot54 will position itself as Brighton's most complete full-service replacement for the sit-down restaurants the area has lost.