While July in Dallas was all about the mid-summer doldrums, August promises to be crazy, with a string of meteoric openings happening this week.
There's a gourmet grocery, a movie theater and a pizzeria. If you've somehow missed the hubbub surrounding these high-profile coming-soons, then we're turning up the incubator so you can watch them hatch:
1. Trader Joe's Dallas. Opening at 2001 Greenville Ave. on August 9. This is the third Trader Joe's to open locally, following the Fort Worth trailblazer in June 2012, and the Plano TJ's which opened in September '12. But this is Dallas proper. Provincial they may be, but some Dallasites would never drive to Plano or Fort Worth. This store is also a big deal because it's on Greenville Avenue, now in the midst of a gentrification.
The parking lot is swept, the shelves are being stocked; it's only a matter of hours before some cookie-butter-craving ding-dong starts camping outside the door.
2. Alamo Drafthouse Richardson. Opening at Richardson Heights on August 9. For movie fans with personality, the Alamo is the pinnacle. It has Austin roots, great food, retrospective screenings, fun contests, a sense of community, craft beer and does not allow cell phone use during screenings.
No question, cell phones are annoying; but what's just as cool about that policy is the take-no-prisoners no-BS attitude that such a ban implies. That Alamo chose Richardson, whose community-oriented citizens have their own Austin-esque mien, is just gravy on the potatoes.
3. Zoli's NY Pizza Tavern. Opening in Oak Cliff on August 6. Part of the excitement surrounding this modest pizzeria in Oak Cliff is timing. (It's defnitely not the ranch.) There's just not much competition in the way of new places (other than the intriguing Bread Zeppelin).
There's also the fact that owner Jay Jerrier has proven with Cane Rosso and Cane Rosso White Rock that he 1. knows how to put out a quality product and 2. can maintain consistency. But the final impetus is the cavalcade of photographs – puffy pizza crusts, crimson marinara sauce, breaded zucchini sticks fried golden brown – that have been crossing Zoli's Facebook page for the past two months. Uncle!
The first Alamo Drafthouse in the Dallas area opens August 9.
