Even Troy Aikman Had to Wait for a Table: Saying Goodbye to a Local Icon

The booth was on the right as you walked in, along the far back wall, past the tables lining the patio, tucked into the corner. Back then, I was just another wine writer in a town that had lots of them, but eating lunch in The Booth at Sevy’s with Gallo’s Carmen Castorina and whoever he brought for a wine tasting that day made me feel like a whole lot more.

Sevy’s was that kind of place, a Park Cities hangout where even someone who writes about cheap wine felt welcome. I thought about those lunches again when the news broke that Sevy’s new landlord was throwing the restaurant out after almost 30 years in business. These days, even though long-time Dallas restaurants are closing so quickly that it’s hard to keep track, Sevy’s seemed the exception. It had survived the tech crash at the beginning of the century, the 2008 recession, chef-owner Jim Severson’s health problems, and the pandemic. Surely it was immune.

But surely not, given the landlord boom scooping up some of the city’s most desirable restaurant real estate. So I called Carmen, retired for several years, and said, “Let’s have lunch at Sevy’s one last time.”

The Booth

Not much had changed since we had eaten there a couple of years ago. It was still packed (“Just one empty table,” said Carmen after scanning the room at noon); the service was still impeccable; and the duck flautas with black bean pico was still a required appetizer.

Sevy’s, for all its Park Cities power-lunchness, always had a more neighborhood feel than Al Biernat’s, the other power icon in those days. Dallas’ mayors and Jerry Jones ate at Al Biernat’s, and you got the sense they wanted to be seen eating there. At Sevy’s, the feeling was mostly about eating lunch. It was such a neighborhood place that a friend of mine, who grew up in the Park Cities, couldn’t eat dinner at Sevy’s without seeing people he had gone to high school with.

I mentioned this to Severson, who sat with Carmen and me in The Booth for a few minutes, and he said that was one of his goals when he opened the place. It was also going to make it difficult to find a new location; what’s the point of having a neighborhood restaurant if there’s no place for it in the neighborhood?

Which offers a particularly ironic twist to the Sevy’s dilemma. I did some reporting, and it seems only banks can afford the new, twice as high, rent. This, even though there are already more than a dozen banks in the surrounding couple of blocks (I drove around and counted). Who would have thought that a restaurant catering to people who use banks more than the rest of us would be turned out by a bank?

Finally, that Severson joined us speaks to the kind of stand-up guy Carmen is. And it speaks to The Booth, where we always sat and where there’s a name-sized plaque with “Carmen Castorina” written across it next to plaques listing other well-known guests who sat there, including T. Boone Pickens, Norman Brinker and Roger Horchow.

In fact, Troy Aikman’s name used to be on The Booth, which led to a story that Carmen and I still smile about. We were eating lunch at Sevy’s when Aikman walked in. Since we were in The Booth, Aikman had to take a table, just like any other customer. Where else in Dallas would someone without a Super Bowl ring be treated better than a legendary Cowboys quarterback?

Apparently, only at Sevy’s.

Sevy’s will close June 27, 2026.