Is Grass Fed The New Black Sheep?!

Grass Fed interior (Photo: Grass Fed)

An Ultimate Insider contacted 312DD Thursday with some curious information that the newly opened Bucktown steakhouse Grass Fed may already be in trouble.

"I'm hearing the entire staff walked out, including the chef," he said.

Now, this is a restaurant that just opened on July 21. This story is starting to sound like the saga of the ill-fated Black Sheep.

Of course I made several calls to the restaurant for comment, but weirdly there was a constant busy signal, so I couldn't get through.

UPDATE: Here's a statement from owner Scott Kay:

"Our kitchen program has been overseen by Gavin Mills for the last year. He is the executive chef at Wood & Vine, my restaurant in Hollywood. He has helped construct the menu, define the cut through butchery of the entire top butt and hire and train staff locally. He had helped hire Cody Butler, a local chef, that helped us kick off the program. Gavin has continued to be involved and I suspect we will see him behind the stoves from time to time continuing to help put out an outstanding product and overseeing kitchen management.

"For a variety of reasons things did not work out with Cody and he is no longer employed at Grass Fed. Two other staff members of the 30 people on our team elected to leave with Cody. I have a lot of respect for Cody as a chef and wish him the best of luck. Dirul Shamsid-Deen has taken over running the program. He most recently worked at the LGO Group (a large restaurant group out of Arizona and Los Angeles). Prior to that he worked for me under Gavin Mills in Hollywood.

"We are very excited about our current team and feel that we have not skipped a beat in terms putting out an excellent product. In fact we are opening for brunch this weekend and looking forward to continuing to expand our program."