Kitchen LTO Spawns its First Real Restaurant: Pink Magnolia

Though it's not directly associated with Trinity Groves, I think Phil Romano can mark the first success of his incubator project. Blythe Beck's lengthy stint at Kitchen LTO has yielded Pink Magnolia, a pop-up permanent restaurant that will open in Oak Cliff later this summer.

Casie Caldwell's involvement, on the other hand, is much more direct. The creator and owner of Kitchen LTO remains a partner in the new restaurant. It can now be said that Kitchen LTO's first pop-up has permanently popped.

Kitchen LTO has tried on a number of chefs since opening in 2013. The premise of the permanent pop-up was that successful chefs would move on to permanent restaurants. While most of the chefs participating in the concept have moved on to other jobs, none of them have opened a restaurant on their own. In that way, Beck's new venture marks a bit of a milestone.

Pink Magnolia will move into the former Driftwood space, which was abandoned last year due to what the owners cited as plumbing issues. The small building with an even smaller but beautiful patio was once home to one of the most lauded seafood restaurants in Dallas. Now the smell of fried chicken will fill the air on West Davis Street, just outside the Bishop Arts District.

A menu for the new restaurant has not been released yet, but the name and the notion that it will be loosely based on Blythe's stint at Kitchen LTO has.