Luke Crosland stands at the window of his seventh-floor office and looks out across Preston Center. In the foreground, a tangle of luxury SUVs battle for access to a shabby, two-story parking garage that seems to deteriorate before his eyes. The garage is ringed by a jumble of aging retail strips th ... More >>
Dallas -- nay, America -- has many good reasons to love Mark Cuban. He turned the Mavericks into NBA champions. He's the most accessible billionaire in the universe. He yells at terrible refs on our behalf and feuds with the Perots. He was a disruptor before disrupting was cool. But for all of Cuban ... More >>
Earlier this week, we spent some time examining why Preston Center, the aging shopping center floating on a sea of Park Cities/Preston Hollow riches, sucks so hard. Little did we know that Crow Holdings already had a plan to fix it. With a skybridge. Last December, Crow purchased the old Sanger-Har ... More >>
Anyone who's attempted to navigate the intersection of Preston and Northwest Highway at rush hour will have had ample opportunity while sitting through multiple cycles of the stop light to contemplate one of North Dallas' most enduring paradoxes. Here, at the spot where the Park Cities and Preston H ... More >>
The last time I heard about Lyfe Kitchen it was mentioned in an article in the New York Times Magazine a little more than a year ago. Mark Bittman was lamenting the options for affordable, healthy dining on the quick in America, and was resigned to bean burritos from Taco Bell and veggie sandwiches ... More >>
This is not the sort of sign you want to see taped to the door of a restaurant where you've held a long-awaited reservation for Easter Bunch, but customers who walked up to Mi Piaci's shiny glass windows expecting drinks and food have been met with locked doors since last Friday. The landlord has c ... More >>
In Happy Endings, food critic Scott Reitz travels part of the globe that says "Dallas" in search of great desserts and great places to eat them. This is the fifth in an occasional series. If you've ever been in one of those dining situations where nothing is going right, there's no need to drive th ... More >>
I have to hand it to Miss Chi, the newish pho spot in Preston Center. Owner Lan Chi Li was bold to throw a little gelatinous tendon in her pho. Other restaurants that serve the soup have told me they won't include tendon and other challenging ingredients like tripe because none of their customers wo ... More >>
Remember this summer when Frankie's closed? You were sad for four seconds and then you went back to browsing cat videos on Facebook. Or maybe your reaction was so devoid of emotion because you were secretly hoping the defunct sports bar would be replaced with something more interesting -- that you'd ... More >>
Jay Jerrier is looking for a few good pizzaiolos, according to a recent post to his Facebook page. It links to an ad on Craigslist that asks experienced applicants to stop by the restaurant for a tryout. And it turns out Zoli's isn't the only prominent restaurant in the Dallas area that's hiring rig ... More >>
According to new signage up in Preston Center, Dallas can soon expect another notch in its Vietnamese restaurant belt. The new Miss Chi Vietnamese appears to be from the folks behind Tanoshi Ramen, which itself is a new noodle restaurant in Deep Ellum. Joey and Chi Le are the pair behind Tanoshii ... More >>
Dude, Sweet Chocolate, the city's sauciest chocolatier, has opened up a new permanent store at 1925 Greenville Avenue, just down from the new Truck Yard and Trader Joe's. The spot quietly opened Friday and will have a grand opening this Friday at 7 p.m. Katherine Clapner opened her first little sho ... More >>
I have to admit the menu of the upcoming True Food Kitchen is looking attractive. I was never the type of person that went nuts for juice bars and dishes that prominently featured kale, but two years of dining as a food critic have taken a toll. I crave fresh vegetables and fruits like I used to cra ... More >>
Dallas' first exclusive ramen restaurant, Tanoshii Ramen Bar (2724 Commerce), will open next Tuesday, September 24, its owners have announced. Joey and Chi Le also own Wicked Po'Boys in Richardson and in the Preston Center. Now they're turning their attention to house-made noodles and "late-nigh ... More >>
When a brand spanking new doughnut shop and ice cream parlor both open on the same day, it makes for interesting times here in Big D. Last Friday while Glazed Donut Works in Deep Ellum posted a sign that they were already sold out just two hours after opening, another line was forming to get an ear ... More >>
Juan Ponce de Leon got some bad information. The Fountain of Youth isn't in Florida, as the 16th-century Spanish conquistador eventually figured out. It's actually a thousand miles to the west in an otherwise unremarkable Preston Center storefront, conveniently sandwiched between the Park Cities and ... More >>
Another month has come and gone and with it a handful of restaurants have opened. Read on for the full list of restaurants happenings in April, and be sure to share tips about new and/or dead restaurants in the comments section below or at dish@dallasobserver.com. Openings: Il Cane Rosso White Roc ... More >>
Chi and Joey Le have expanded their N'awlins sandwich shop, Wicked Po'boys, to Dallas proper, after opening their first spot in Richardson (1811 N. Greenville Ave.) just last year. This second restaurant is in the heart of Preston Center (6030 Luther Lane, Ste. 130), which is ripe with new restauran ... More >>
I kind of wanted to hate John Tesar for putting his fine-dining seafood restaurant in the middle of the Preston Center. While the people that live nearby are no doubt grateful, I don't like driving that far to park near a DSW and look out the window at a guy running on a treadmill while I'm slurping ... More >>
Did someone say Wintervention? Looks like a nasty cold front is on its way. Time to break out those dutch ovens and braise some lamb shanks, I'm thinking. Or maybe a hearty beef stew is more your style. Whatever you plan on cooking, cold weather dishes make your kitchen smell amazing and always have ... More >>
While a handful of restaurants popped up in the DFW area last month, November wasn't nearly as busy as October for restaurant openings and closings. Read on for the full list and be sure to share tips about new and/or dead restaurants in the comments section below or at dish@dallasobserver.com. Spo ... More >>
Dude, Sweet Chocolate has just opened a second location at 8304 Preston Center Plaza Drive, between Taco Diner and R&D Kitchen. And another spot is set to open next week at 2925 Crockett (just south of Seventh, near Fireside Pies) in Town of the Cow. Prior to becoming a chocolate-dealer, Dude Kath ... More >>
Chef John Tesar's latest culinary project, Spoon Bar & Kitchen (8220 Westchester Drive) is now open in Preston Center (directly across from Hopdoddy Burger Bar). The dinner menu offers raw caviar, oyster and crudo options, salads, pasta (including house-made fusilli with red wine braised octopus ser ... More >>
GRIP Mediterranean Grill has opened in the Preston Center at 6030 Luther Lane (a few doors down from Hopdoddy) as a fast-casual pita wrap in the same vein of Chipotle. Like, exactly the same vein. If you tested the DNA, it'd be the same, just taste and smell different. The dining room is sleek and ... More >>
Hopdoddy is an upscale, yet casual, burger restaurant and bar that originated in Austin just a couple years ago. Founders Larry Perdido and Chuck Smith are old hats in the restaurant business. According to Austin Culture Map, they sold their Eddie V's Prime Seafood and Wildfish Seafood Grille to the ... More >>
Allison V. SmithBack in January, chef John Tesar announced he was kind of over the whole Commissary, One Arts Plaza thing. He was pulling out and shifting his focus to a new restaurant on Westchester Drive in Preston Center. Spoon was what Tesar called the space, and bloggers got to bloggin ... More >>
Southpaw's GrillReza Anavarian, originally from Azerbaijan, flies to Georgia this weekend for an ESI Ironman Competition, which includes a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride and a 13.1-mile jog through beautiful downtown Augusta. In addition to conditioning for that insanity, he's also training a ... More >>
Via.At the Studio Club on Sherry Lane in Preston Center, The Gentlemen were, from left to right, Tommy Turner on keybs, a kneeling Tim Justice on drums, Mike Kelley on guitars and vox (on "Cry'n Shame"), Bruce Bland on bass and Seab Meador on lead guitars and vocals.Fans of the Dallas garage-rock ... More >>
Photos by Dylan Hollingsworth James Adams, in front of the iconic Gaston Avenue diner he opened more than four decades agoTomorrow at 2 p.m., Wayne Adams will do something he hasn't done since The Great Remodel of '97: He will lock the front door to the Metro Diner on Gaston Avenue. Which is why ... More >>
We've known for two months that the Metro Diner on Gaston Avenue is closing, but till today we never had a solid date -- just "end of March." Not so fast: Owner Wayne Adams, whose just-turned-90 dad James originally started the landmark diner, just called to say that last supper will be served on ... More >>
My cell phone is still packed with photos I took of my dad and son in front of the Preston Center Metro Grill on its final day of operations in August 2008. And now this? Teresa Gubbins breaks the news that the Gaston Avenue Metro, an institution since '68, is also about to close. I just got off ... More >>
From Hillstone.comHouston's in Preston Center is now officially Hillstone, a name change that executive general manager Francis Luttmer reports has provoked some worried inquiries from longtime customers. "Their concern is we're going to take away their favorite dish," Luttmer says. "We're telli ... More >>
Photos by Patrick MichelsI once at a fish this big.Flying Fish6126 Luther Ln.214-696-FISHDude Factor: 8, or Don Knotts, on a scale of 1 (Kevin Costner) to 10 (Ernest Borgnine) I'd been too long on the turf, dudes, and got the hunger for a little surf. Fish Shack would have done nicely, but no way ... More >>
This morning, Bloomberg News pays a visit to Preston Center, where a certain former president is about to set up shop, and finds that it's quite "popular with lawyers who don't want to be downtown, small accounting firms seeking proximity to wealthy clients, and investors who need office space outsi ... More >>
Bloomberg's story concerning President Bush's new office digs in Preston Center -- first in Berkshire at Preston Center, before he moves into a larger space at Sherry Lane Place -- contains an note of interest toward the end. But first, this relevant aside: Says here that taxpayers will pay $38.95 p ... More >>
We tried this once before, so here goes again: Can you please, pretty please, help the folks in the Dallas Public Library's Texas/Dallas History & Archives figure out just what in the heck's going in this picture? Because, right now, this is all they got to go on: "Crowds of children outside Preston ... More >>
View Larger Map Two things that stunned me as I read this story about the closing of the Metro Diner: It's closing? On Saturday?!?! W. T. F? Haven't been in a couple of months, but it's my son's favorite breakfast spot -- my father's too, after we convinced him to return following a 20-year absence ... More >>
View Larger Map Newsweek's "web exclusive" about George and Laura Bush's house-hunting in Dallas just went online. A highlight among many: Agents say that when Mrs. Bush checks out a listing, the agent who has the listing is asked to vacate the premises, and soon afterward a big black Suburban pull ... More >>
Daddy needs a new baby grand -- and a nice fountain, which, come to think of it, would look amazing in the front yard. Good thing we know where to get one: tomorrow and Sunday, from 9 a.m to 5 p.m., at the great Gordo's on Lovers Lane. Hard to believe, but tonight's the last night at that location, ... More >>
I spent a few minutes this morning talking to our old pal Zac Crain, who now says he can't believe he ever wanted to be mayor in a city where 71,000 people turned out to vote -- an "apocalyptic" figure, says the wanna-be candidate booted off the ballot. "I feel like I wasted a year, beating my head ... More >>
It's safe to assume that not a soul dining at the Metro Diner in Preston Center this morning knew they were scarfing down eggs and bacon with punk-rock royalty, nor did they have any idea that sitting in their midst was an indie-filmmaking heroine who also has on her filmography a handful of Sex and ... More >>
Landmark Restaurant & Original Pancake House
At Lobster Ranch, the main course claws its way to the top
The food at Bistro Latino rises above the darkness
Don't get malled. This year, do your business al fresco.
Stride Rite
Stride Rite (ask for Ginger in the back)
Grapes of glory; Coming and going
Szechuan Pavilion is a shadow of its former greatness