Audio By Carbonatix
FoodStar burns-out
Sputtering on the brink of fizzle for several months, FoodStar Restaurant Group was euthanized just before Thanksgiving when U.S. Judge Steven A. Felsenthal allowed it to slink into bankruptcy. The company had been locked in a tug-of-war since October 7, when former FoodStar President Michael Caolo attempted to nudge it into Chapter 7. But Chicago-based Clever Ideas Inc., the company that grabbed FoodStar’s reins last September after assuming roughly $1 million of its debt, attempted to block the move. The company’s clever idea was to foreclose on FoodStar’s restaurants and initiate “an organ harvest [and] try to get some value out of it,” as one of the firm’s attorneys put it. Instead, a trustee will strive to put some luster back into Toscana and Mediterraneo, in hopes of selling the restaurants whole, with all their organs intact.
Bug swat
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The Dragonfly Restaurant & Bar won’t be back. “The bug is gone,” says Dunhill Partners President Bill Hutchinson. Hutchinson, landlord of the property on Lower Greenville, says he grew tired of the hits he’d taken from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and neighborhood activists. So he’s chosen for the location a concept, drafted by Sambuca founders Kim and Holly Forsythe, that he insists will please everybody. Holly Forsythe says plans call for a lounge (opening in February) with a light menu featuring “global tapas.” “It’s not going to look anything like it was before,” she says. “It’s Phillipe Stark meets Austin Powers meets the milk bar in Clockwork Orange.” A Clockwork Orange? That should soothe the perennial indignation of Lower Greenville residents.
Y2K vacancies
Remember a year ago when newspaper articles and restaurant managers implored us to lock up 1999 New Year’s Eve reservations as soon as possible? As of Thanksgiving eve, every single one of 11 high-profile Dallas restaurants we checked — The Mansion, The French Room, The Riviera, The Green Room, Star Canyon, Del Frisco’s, Voltaire, Abacus, The Chaparral Club, The Old Warsaw, and the Palm Restaurant — had available seating for New Year’s Eve. But it’s not only here. In New York, Windows on The World still has openings for its $2,000 per person bash; Sam & Harry’s, an upscale Washington, D.C., steakhouse, is still clamoring for takers of its rare wine dinner for four priced at $19,999.99. What gives? Anecdotal evidence in Dallas suggests that there’s an acute dearth of millennium-eve baby-sitters. [/CGATAGCLOSE>
— Mark Stuertz
Dallas, make your New Year’s Resolution Count!
