We're here with another chapter in the 2025 edition of our annual CultureMap Tastemaker Awards, celebrating the people and places that make Dallas such an exciting dining destination.
In this special editorial series, we're highlighting restaurants, bars, and chefs who've been nominated in eight categories by our esteemed judging panel of last year's winners and local dining experts. We’ll celebrate the nominees and reveal the winners at an awards ceremony and signature tasting event on Thursday, May 1 at the new Astoria Event Venue. (Early Bird tickets are on sale now at discounted rates of $60 for general admission and $99 for VIP.)
We've already covered Best Neighborhood Restaurants, Rising Star Chef, and Best Coffee Shops, and now it's time to look at Best Eatertainment: the restaurants where food and good times occupy equal status. It could be a restaurant with a great outdoor play amenity; in-house games or arcade; or even as simple as a magnificent patio where chilling outside is as important as the food and drink.
Here are our 10 nominees for Best Eatertainment Restaurant in Dallas for 2025:
Chicken N Pickle
Kansas City-born chain delivers what the name promises, combining pickleball with a dining and entertainment venue. It's an indoor/outdoor entertainment complex with a casual restaurant and sports bar serving rotisserie chicken, sandwiches, and salads. Plus shuffleboard, ping pong, picnic benches, and yard games like cornhole. And pickleball, of course. There are locations in Grand Prairie and Grapevine, with a third opening in Allen in May.
Eataly
Italian marketplace was born in Italy, before expanding to the U.S. and opening in Dallas at NorthPark Center in December 2020. Italian food is the theme, with many imported treats, from prosciutto to panettone. Eataly is food as entertainment, with a festive, immersive environment that feels like a foodie amusement park — whether you're digging into pasta at one of their three in-house restaurants, learning to cook pasta at one of their classes, or buying pasta to cook at home.
Happiest Hour
Harwood Hospitality is always patio-conscious dating back to its original concept Saint Ann, which opened in 2013. But Happiest Hour takes it next level with 20,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor space, a sprawling rooftop deck with views of downtown Dallas and two levels, snacks, 50+ beers on tap, shareable cocktails, 40-plus TVs, DJs, brunches, watch parties, and epic events.
Kanpai Coffee + Beer Garden
Casual concept is a combination coffee shop-beer garden from a team that includes Austin chef Michael Carranza that opened quietly in Deep Ellum, where it's serving Asian-fusion dishes such as Frito pie with sushi rice and tuna tataki. They were lucky to inherit the former Mama Tried space, providing them with an Austin-style outdoor honkytonk with stage for live music.
Katy Trail Icehouse
One of the original Austin-inspired outdoor-driven hangouts in Dallas, this casual beer garden and restaurant is an oasis in the heart of Uptown Dallas with its ringside seat on the Katy Trail where you can get almost as much exercise watching someone jog as if you did it yourself, right? There are no games here — just picnic tables and cheerful colored metal patio furniture with a 50-foot long bar boasting 50 beers.
Komodo
Buzzy restaurant and bar from Miami-based Groot Hospitality, located in The Epic office tower on the edge of Deep Ellum, is a cut above most of the more party-centric nominees, thanks to its serious Southeast Asian/global menu of dishes such as Peking duck, salmon tacos, and plant-based Kung Pao chicken, plus full sushi bar. But once dinner hour is over, DJs come in and the restaurant transforms into a lively bar scene.
Punch Bowl Social
This 24,000-square-foot restaurant-bar at Main Street and Good Latimer in Deep Ellum is a fun-and-games temple with bowling, pinball, arcade games, pool table, ping pong, wall scrabble, trivia nights, a custom-built 360-degree bar, three outdoor patio spaces, and themed lounges with designs such as mountain lodge or midcentury modern. The food-and-bev also screams fun with shareables including nachos and the signature punch bowl, with alcohol or AF.
Scout
This 4,000-square-foot dining, drinking, and gaming hub with burgers, bites, cocktails, beer, and vintage bowling alley would be fun no matter where it was. But the fact that it's in the lobby of the historic downtown Statler Dallas hotel gives it that extra cosmopolitan glow. There's a pool table and you can play ping-pong for free, and the snacks — firecracker shrimp lettuce wraps, Hatch green chile mac & cheese, brisket pizza — are right on the money.
Suburban Yacht Club
Plano restaurant at The Boardwalk at Granite Park is part of the 33 Restaurant Group (Union Bear Brewing Co., Cadillac Pizza Pub, Taverna Rossa, The Yard in McKinney), with a food-truck style menu featuring dishes such as bean & cheese tacos with avocado. While there aren't a slew of games, there are tiki drinks such as the the Tiki Tai with rum, Orange Curacao Orgeat, passion fruit, lime and tiki bitters. Those are fun.
Truck Yard
Greenville Avenue staple helped usher in the Austin-style backyard hang-out trend that now dominates Dallas' food & beverage world. Since its debut in 2013, it remains a popular place to relax with live music and snack from food trucks and a full bar. They're low on games but big on hanging out and they're now the official home to the Tango Frogs, part of a renovation in early 2023 that also included firepits and a covered patio.
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The Tastemaker Awards program is brought to you by The Yuengling Company, Brioche Gourmet, Still Austin Whiskey, Hornitos, Whataburger, PicMe Events, and more to be announced soon. A portion of the proceeds will benefit our nonprofit partner, Harvest Project Food Rescue.
