Restaurants and Food Services

New Chip's to Join Matt's and The Mecca on La Vista Drive

The cluster of restaurants around the intersection of La Vista Drive and Skillman Street is about to get a new addition. A second Chip's Old Fashioned Hamburgers is slated to open there by the end of this summer. If you've ever exited the Dallas North Tollway at Lovers Lane you've definitely seen t ... More >>

Houston-based Ignite Restaurant Group Buys Romano's Macaroni Grill

Dallas restaurateur Phil Romano opened the first Macaroni Grill in 1988 and thus began the schooling of waiters around the country on how to write their name upside down. (That was a thing the waiters once did there. Not sure exactly why, but people seemed to like it.) In 1989, just a year after op ... More >>

From Silverware Theft to Fights in Bars, The Legal Low-Down for Restaurant Owners

OK team, huddle 'round and take a knee. We realize we cover a lot of topics pertaining to burgers, beer and tacos here at the City of Ate. And that's all fun and games until someone gets an eye poked out. And by that we mean jabbed in the eye socket with a lawsuit. Suppose an errant knife or deep- ... More >>

Yet Another Smashburger Coming To Dallas, This Time In Mockingbird Station

Smashburger announced the opening of the fifth Dallas area location of their popular burger chain based in Colorado. The new restaurant is opening in Mockingbird Station later this fall. If the Smash is not your thing, a number of other restaurants are opening in the shopping center that flanks the ... More >>

Hopdoddy Burger Bar Opens Wednesday in Preston Center

Hopdoddy is an upscale, yet casual, burger restaurant and bar that originated in Austin just a couple years ago. Founders Larry Perdido and Chuck Smith are old hats in the restaurant business. According to Austin Culture Map, they sold their Eddie V's Prime Seafood and Wildfish Seafood Grille to the ... More >>

Midwesterners Take Heart: Maid-Rite is Now Open in Arlington

So, the deal with Maid-Rite is it's really old (85ish) and their meat is loose. And apparently the funny naming homophones are simply attributed to the original founder's inability to spell -- not that I'm throwing stones, seeing how my own house is kind of glassy there. Maid-Rite is a Midwestern s ... More >>

Pizza Patrón Offers Free Pizza to Spanish-Speakers. Sounds Bueno to Us!

Yesterday, Pizza Patrón announced a new pizza promotion: On Tuesday, June 5, from 5 to 8 p.m., Spanish speaking customers get what every Spanish speaking customer desperately craves -- free pepperoni pizza. The press release tried to preempt any possible backlash by doing its best to invoke a jov ... More >>

New Dallas City Council Rules Should Get Food Trucks Rolling into Dallas

So Cal Tacos​Over on Pegausus News, DFW Food Truck Foodie reported yesterday that the Dallas City Council has released the headlock they'd had on many North Texas food trucks by resolving a few code compliance issues. The biggest change is to allow retrofitted trucks. Previously the code allo ... More >>

Break Out Your Bubble Gum: Maid-Rite Corporation Is Coming to Dallas

​Des Moines, Iowa-based Maid-Rite corporation promises to descend en masse upon the DFW metroplex, blanketing the area in its popular "loose meat" sandwich, tucked inside a mass produced white-bread bun. The 85-year-old corporation has targeted a Arlington's Green Oaks Shopping Center at the ... More >>

Irving T.G.I. Friday's Bites the Dust

​Even restaurants with God in their names aren't immune to the economy. (Or maybe God got shorted on his order of potato skins.) The T.G.I. Friday's chains Irving location at 1001 MacArthur Park has closed. Every piece of T.G.I. Friday's flair and signage has been removed and all that remain ... More >>

City Council's Set to Rewrite Ordinances Allowing for Food Trucks, Campaign Signs

From Jack's ChowHound's Facebook page​Tomorrow the city council will discuss why Mary Suhm wants to keep all of Dallas' trash and allowing the public a shot at redrawing the council districts' boundaries. But not before it votes on two hot-button issues: food trucks and campaign signs on public pr ... More >>

Miss Turkey and The Top Five Shameless Carl's Jr. Ads

Carl's Jr - YouTube"To help you remember we put Miss Turkey in a bikini": Carl's Jr. new ad for their turkey burger.​Carl's Jr., which opened a new spot in Dallas late last year, has added a new entry to their weird, not funny food-meets-porn marketing strategy. The commercial popped up on Eater t ... More >>

Battle Over Mi Cocina Name in Colorado Ends With Truce

​Our sister paper in Denver today reports the M Crowd Restaurant Group has settled its lawsuit with a small Northwest Denver restaurant operating under the name "Mi Cocina". According to the settlement's terms, Saul Sierra may continue to use the name in a limited area of Colorado, a result t ... More >>

Food Trucks in the Arts District Parked on City Plan Commission's Agenda This Week

The Hot Box parked on Flora Street back on October 31, when it went as A Row of Food Trucks on Halloween​At year's end, Veletta Lill, former city council member and executive director of the Dallas Arts District, told Unfair Park: "We will have food trucks in the Arts District by the spring," cou ... More >>

Breakfast Tacos: Taste What You're Missing, America

Get a clue, America.​Restaurant owners are growing increasingly excited about the prospects for breakfast pizza, but breakfast tacos don't show any signs of making significant inroads nationally. Breakfast pizza is typically a tomato sauce-less concoction of eggs, cheese and meat -- sort of l ... More >>

McDonald's Japan Captures Texas on a Bun

​The Texas Burger, released last month at McDonald's restaurants across Japan, proved so popular that the fast food chain's already issued a sequel. Spokeswoman Melissa Daly describes the Texas 2 Burger, available now in Japan, as featuring "flavors of the Lone Star State with spicy chili bea ... More >>

Shoot, We Didn't Know You Could Put
Lap Dances on a Tab

The real reason men go to strip clubs.​Newspaper readers in places as far away as London are today laughing at the hapless Dallas duo that opted to flee a Northwest Highway strip club when they couldn't pay their $5,000 tab. But folks have thus far failed to praise Micah Boswell and Elizabeth ... More >>

Seasons 52: Chain Food Minus Butter and Salt. What's the Point?

Restaurateurs Struggle to Match App to Appetite

​The website for Fearing's is a pretty good model of restaurant website design. It doesn't sing, or waste time on Flash graphics that never load properly. It helpfully provides menus and hours and allows patrons to make online reservations. Fearing's iPhone app is somewhat less impressive. Th ... More >>

Pizza Patron's New Line Gives
Franchisees the Chills

​Pizza Patron's newest product is distressing some franchisees, who fear the frozen pizza line will cut into their sales. "I'd say a number of them are concerned," concedes brand director Andrew Gamm. "But it's a great opportunity for the brand." Pizza Patron frozen pizzas are now available ... More >>

Chain Gang: Pizza Inn and Wingstop
Adding Lots o' Links

​Pizza Inn and Wingstop are two DFW-based chains making some national food news. While Wingstop continues to grow at rapid speed, Pizza Inn is hoping franchise incentives and a kids-friendly concept will help propel their new prototype restaurants to success. The Colony-based pizza chain i ... More >>

No Way (In-N-) Out...For Now

Does California's storied burger chain have it in for Dallas? Unfair Park has the answer...for the time being.

Dude Food: Olive Garden

Olive Garden639 N. Cockrell Hill Road, DuncanvilleDude Factor: 3, or Roseanne (waitress/proprieter of loose meat sandwich specialty diner The Lanford Lunch Box), on a scale of 1 (Zach Braff in Garden State) to 10 (Jonah Hill in Forgetting Sarah Marshall)Last Saturday my lady and I--with tired bones, ... More >>

Food For Thought 4.30.09

"I'll either look like a genius or a fool." (Ed Bailey, owner of the just opened Bailey's Prime Plus in Cedar Hill--as well as three more proposed branches of the upscale steakhouse--on his prospects over the next year as he sells off profitable McDonald's locations in favor of fine dining venues. A ... More >>

Food For Thought 3.12.09

"The good news for the restaurant industry is that consumers typically get hungry about every four to five hours, generally three times a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year." (Bob Derrington, securities analyst with Morgan Keegan & Co., on the ability of restaurants to weather nasty little ... More >>

Burning Question: Are Restaurants Looking Forward to 2009?

Long about, oh, a few hours after midnight on New Year's, the Burning Question crew made a resolution.We felt strongly about it at the time--so much so that we carefully jotted the details in black ink. Apparently, in 2009, we plan to dedicate ourselves to the overthrow of Bhutan, which we will then ... More >>

First the Stock's Downgraded. Then, Some Chili's Abruptly Close.

Pizza Inn to Make it Bahrain

Former Screen Door Chef Takes Reins at Dali Wine Bar & Cellar

On the Brinker

The Revolution, One Slice at a Time

Bennigan's Reducing Its Pieces of Flair

Rathbun Leveraged

Rathbun's Regroup

Calling Minor Foodies

Dallas' Food Chains

Pizza Patron Extending "Peso Gimmick" Indefinitely

Passing the Candle

Bite the Vote

She's Gotta Serve It

Dallas dining is largely controlled by men. Seven women are trying to change that.

Puff Puff Poof

Smoking ban passed in the name of public health--right?

Hard Rock

New global tapas bar opening on McKinney Avenue

Wrapped Up In Chains

Fast-food restaurants are quietly taking over the world

Playing Chicken

Come boom or bust Dallasites gotta eat--out, that is

Burning Question

Where are the spoons?

Fallen star

How greed, incompetence, and allegations of fraud sank Dallas' FoodStar Restaurant Group

Let 'em eat loin

1998 was a year of lusty carnivores, raw fish, and orgiastic indulgence

Hot Dish

We're here for the beer

Stick to liquid refreshment at The Copper Tank