Add Method to Dallas' growing list of serious coffee shops. The shoebox-sixed storefront on the corner of Ross Avenue and Hall Streets opened Saturday to an enthusiastic bunch of java junkies.
Maybe they were jonesing so hard because they waited so long. Owner Louie Corwin has been working on the project the better part of a year before hosting a mock service last week. He finally got it open over the weekend.
It was last July that we talked to property owner Richard Allen. His retail space has been home to Joyce and Gigi's for more than a year now, and while the one end had played home to furniture storage and sales, the other end of the building had been empty for years.
His previous tenant had just lost their financing, but Allen seemed far from worried. "Ross Street is the new Knox Henderson," he said. If he couldn't find a new tenant, he'd just open the coffee shop himself. He eventually found Corwin.
Method intends to be more than a coffee shop. Corwin and a few of his staff talk about TABC permits on the horizon -- they want this little coffee shop to be a place to hang out, not just refuel and go.
It could happen. The space is small but comfortable, and the patio out front adds some much-needed seating. There's a small communal seating area toward the front, opposite a small bar that runs along one wall. A handful of small tables leads to an ominous framed sign: "Maximum Occupancy 14." Filling those seats over the weekend was plenty of thick-rimmed eyewear, sock-less bluchers, and colorful tattoos.
And while you're waiting for that whole TABC to happen you should keep yourself occupied with what was, at least this Saturday, a stellar plate of French toast. Who the hell wants butter and syrup when you can have berries and crème anglaise?
