Photo by Chris Wolfgang
Audio By Carbonatix
When RAYO Bar and Lounge in Exposition Park announced it would close its doors in February of this year, the sting radiated well beyond the neighborhood. We loved the detailed care lavished on their craft cocktails and thoughtful menu, but owners Ryan Victor and Lauren Wahlstrom said in a Facebook post that it was too difficult to continue in today’s climate. While the spot on the corner of Parry and Exposition Avenues was the end of the road for Rayo, for long-time Dallas chef Mike Stites, it represents a new beginning.
Late this summer, Stites, along with friend and fellow chef Evan Pemberton, will open a new restaurant, Midcult Society, in the former RAYO space. We dropped by recently to chat with Sties and Pemberton about their upcoming launch.
The Holy Ghost and Live Fire
Stites, as you may recall, was the chef de cuisine under Ross Demers at Cry Wolf, which abruptly closed in October 2023. Pemberton, who worked alongside Stites at Flora Street Cafe, has spent the last five years in Chicago, most recently working at Roister, The Aviary, and the Michelin-starred Ainea under the acclaimed chef Grant Achatz.
Stites and Pemberton remained in touch, and together envisioned a restaurant they planned to call Holy Ghost.
“I love cooking with live fire,” said Stites. “And the idea was we would find a space with a wood grill where all of our dishes would involve fire.”
Stites had been looking at several spaces in Dallas over the last year, but nothing panned out. When RAYO announced its closure, Stites was familiar with the space, having hosted a few pop-up dinners there. He loved the location, loved the size, but the kitchen didn’t have the wood grill that would be Holy Ghost’s calling card.
“That was something Evan and I have been talking about for years and years,” Stites says. “OK, so then we were like ‘How do we pivot’, and that’s how we came up with Midcult.”
Middlebrow Culture
The name is a shorter take on “middlebrow culture,” an ideal around artistic and intellectual expression that respects high-brow standards but is presented in a way that makes the concepts easily digestible for mainstream audiences. That premise will drive much of the menu, rooted in Southern cuisine that Stites and Pemberton grew up with, with global influences and techniques sprinkled in.
“It’s familiar flavors in an unfamiliar way,” Pemberton explains.
If the premise sounds a bit like Cry Wolf, you wouldn’t be far from the mark.
“I’ve felt like there’s been a Cry-Wolf-shaped hole in Dallas dining for a while,” Stites says. However, he cautions against people expecting a Cry Wolf 2.0. For starters, the menu will remain a little more stable than Cry Wolf’s, with updates roughly once a quarter. And Midcult Society will be a larger space, with room for about 70 guests.
“I think that’s like a sweet spot,” Stites says. “It’s big enough that we can bring in more people and maybe generate a little bit more revenue, but not so big that Evan and I need to have an army of people in back.”
The New Neighborhood
Pemberton and Stites pointed out that there’s a dearth of restaurants in this corner of Exposition Park, but they hope to be the first of several new spots in the neighborhood in the coming months.
“You’ve got Misti [Norris] five minutes down the road at Far Out, but there’s nothing right here,” Pemberton observed. Midcult’s landlords have mentioned two other restaurants with signed leases that are currently being built out, expanding food options for an area that’s bar-heavy, with Whiskey’s on one side, and Los Almas Rotas on the other, with Craft & Growler down the block. On the business front, Atlético Dallas’ relocation from Richardson to the neighborhood was announced earlier this year, which, combined with the World Cup’s arrival this summer, can only bring a boost to the area.”
For now, Midcult has a menu in place, and the team is working on cosmetic updates to the RAYO space. Stites would love to be open by the middle of June to capitalize on World Cup traffic, but they want to ensure no corners are cut before welcoming the first guest.
“This is going to be creative and fun and inventive and maybe a little weird. And we think it will be the only place in the city where you can get this kind of food,” Stites says. “We’re excited to show this city what we’ve got.”
Midcult Society, 841 Exposition Avenue. Opens Summer 2026.
