First Look: Urbano Café Owners Open Coffee Shop Two Doors Down

If you love the East Dallas BYOB Italian restaurant Urbano Café, you might be happy to hear co-owners Kristen and Mitch Kauffman have recently opened a casual coffee and lunch destination in East Dallas.

Two Doors Down (aka 2DD) is, naturally, located two doors down from Urbano Café. They have owned this space for more than a decade, and it previously served as a second dining area to their main restaurant. In March 2020, however, they stopped serving lunch because the pandemic.
It’s been a while since we’ve been to Urbano Café, so we decided to check out 2DD for lunch. When we’ve gone before, it was BYOB. They now serve wine and beer, but you can still bring your own for a $3 per person corkage fee. The new space contains about 10 tables and has a cozy and casual French café feel.

2DD is open for breakfast and lunch Tuesday through Saturday. In the morning, they serve coffee, café au lait, locally made pastries (in partnership with Leila Bakery and Village Baking Co.), kolaches and savory quiches as well as salads and sandwiches to-go.

If you have time to sip and savor your breakfast, there is the option of the French or Italian breakfast, both $12, and you get a combination of either café au lait or cappuccino and your choice of a baguette, brioche or croissant with jam, gourmet butter and orange juice.

For lunch, which starts at 11 a.m., they have many items that were previously on the Urbano lunch menu with a few additional options of soups, salads, sandwiches, pastas and risottos. On Saturdays at lunch they’re also serving brunch classics like eggs Benedict, short-rib hash and avocado toast and $3 mimosas.

We started with the quiche Lorraine, which was at least 2 inches thick with fluffy eggs and bacon in a handmade crust. We ate only a few bites because we wanted to order other dishes and quite selfishly wanted to save the breakfast for the next day. But those few bites were certainly memorable. Next, we had a cup of their tomato basil soup. The portion size served was closer to what we would consider a bowl.
For our main entrée, we chose the grilled pepper seared ahi tuna sandwich and the ciabatta burger. The ahi tuna sandwich was a perfect medium-rare and was served with roasted beets, spinach and a black olive pesto. We are used to our ahi tuna sandwiches having a ton of wasabi mayo (enough to singe your nose hairs) and greens, but this was a great twist.

The ciabatta burger has changed from the original version served at Urbano a few years ago. That version had a thicker patty that we would order topped with Cambozola blue cheese that would ooze down the side of the burger. We have long considered it one of the best burgers in Dallas, and it had been a while since we had it, so we were looking forward to being reunited with it.
The current burger has 6-ounces of wagyu beef, and although they offer the same toppings as they did previously, it is now served panini-style, and the ciabatta bread to beef ratio had me wondering “Where’s the beef?” The blue cheese also did not have the pungent flavors of their original burger. But the burger itself was good. Despite being a somewhat thinner patty, it was cooked perfectly and the flavor of the meat itself was everything you would expect of wagyu beef. It just wasn’t what we were expecting, and for future visits, (and yes, there will be future visits) we would probably venture toward one of their other dishes. The pesto chicken Caprese sandwich, the veal bolognese or the fusilli with braised short ribs all sound amazing and are on our list to try next.

Dinner runs 5-10 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday at the main Urbano Café location. So, whether you’re an East Dallas resident or an Urbano Café fan be sure to check out Two Doors Down. It’s a great addition to this neighborhood.

Two Doors Down 1412 N. Fitzhugh Ave. Open 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday - Saturday