Yeah, But a Crystal’s Would Be Cooler

Among the dozens of items being taken up during today’s city council end-o’-the-year everything-must-go blowout, scheduled to begin at 9 this morning and last till forever, is this note for Northwest Dallas residents who likewise believe Chuck E. Cheese serves Satan’s pepperoni: We’re getting a GattiTown! Or, at least, something like it: pizza buffet, salad bar, video games, bumper cars, big-screen “theaters,” etc. — like a kiddie Dave & Buster’s or a Crystal’s Pizza Palace without the creepy. (The old one on Inwood Road in the current Tupinamba spot, though, that place was a ‘tweener’s paradise way back when.)

According to Agenda Item No. 83 today, the council will listen to those for and against the granting of a specific use permit that would allow for 6,000 square feet of “commercial amusement (inside) use for an amusement center on property zoned a CR Community Retail District, on the southeast corner of Forest Lane and Marsh Lane.” That’s a strip mall that’s seen better days and is slowly struggling to make itself over, even as its cross-the-street neighbor is likewise full of blank spaces. Still, some neighborhood residents are against it; course they are. The agenda item doesn’t mention the name of the amusement center till way, way down — and even then, it says only “G&G Pizza Partners,” with local owners listed — but word for a long, long time has been Gatti’s. So long as it’s not a Chuck E. Cheese’s. –Robert Wilonsky