Restaurant owner and movie producer Rob Simmons talks his latest gig: Hellfire

Rob Simmons is a pretty unassuming guy. 

Walk by LA PORTA, the Main Street restaurant he opened two years ago this July, and you might catch him taking in the evening’s live music from the sidewalk, or quietly sitting by the bar.

He blends into the lively LA PORTA scene well; his presence is noted but he’s not looking for attention. Simmons spent two years preparing to open LA PORTA  and takes great satisfaction in how far it’s come. Casual observers might not pick up on, however, the extent of his portfolio career. Simmons is a true multi-hyphenate: entrepreneur, restauranteur and movie producer.

Co-founder of JARS Media Group, a leading independent film, television and commercial production company for theatrical, streaming and video-on-demand releases, Simmons has nearly 100 credits to his name. He’ll show up at major industry parties (a recent event for Netflix’s American period drama, Train Dreams, for example) in a hoodie if that’s what he’s feeling and socializes with celebrities on the (semi) regular. 

His latest film, Hellfire, is a small-town action thriller starring Harvey Keitel, Stephen Lang and Dolph Lundgren. “It’s an interesting casting choice that we ended up with, to see those three on screen together,” Simmons, who serves as executive producer, said. “They all were excited to work together and meet each other, which was a nice moment to be a part of.” He said there’s a nostalgic quality to Hellfire, especially for fans of the often stripped-down, straightforward and lone-wolf-as-hero storylines popular in ’80s action films. 

Hellfire revolves around a tormented former-Green Beret drifter (Lang), who wanders into a small, southern town ruled by a ruthless crime boss (Keitel) and a corrupt sheriff (Lundgren). When violence erupts, Lang’s character wages a one-man war for justice. It’s set to debut on direct-to-VOD on February 17.

Simmons entered the business world at just 19 years old. An entrepreneur at heart, he owned one of the largest privately held medical staffing companies in the country and is the co-founder of the CRISPR-based gene editing biotech company, Excision BioTherapeutics, as well as a shareholder in Caravan Biologix. He’s raising three boys (ages 9, 2 and 1) with his wife Izabela, and is working on opening a casual by-the-slice pizza place on Woodbine Avenue in Northport Village. He’s currently spearheading a project with Joe Schramm, Northport Village resident and producer of the Made in Huntington Film and TV Festival, that aims to put local filmmakers to work by bringing more filmmaking to Long Island, and the Town of Huntington.

While in the medical staffing business, Simmons got turned onto film. He saw his first script in 2009, written by fellow JARS co-founder, James Abbott. Together they learned the process of making movies and by 2010 were quickly immersed in the industry, growing a large network of colleagues and resources.

“The funny thing is, we never made his movie,” Simmons said of Abbott’s script. “We made about 100 movies but not that one.” The constant pipeline of projects continues; JARS has 22 movies set to be released in the near future, and a handful in development. In 2024, he was nominated for an Emmy for the daytime drama series, “The Bay.” 

It’s a lot to juggle but Simmons isn’t phased. “What’s great about the film business is there’s no real hours,” he said; taking a phone call at midnight is perfectly normal and the work just flows – there’s no such thing as set hours or days. 

“I have the whole rhythm down,” he said. “Plus, I can do so much from my phone.”

He compares opening LA PORTA to his life in film: there are a lot of similar roles when you manage a restaurant or a movie, he said, from getting permits to design to production/staffing. The blending of his professional identities has so far been seamless, though Simmons does admit that the reality of opening LA PORTA after a two-year process, the work to make the space fully operational and successful, made him nervous. 

“That was a pretty intense period,” he admitted, his composure still intact.  

Hellfire is scheduled for release on Tuesday, February 17 via digital and Video on Demand (VOD) platforms. Check out the official trailer below.