New Dining Frontier

Why Dallas is ready to give healthy restaurants a shot

Out of nowhere, Dallas-Fort Worth has become America's new center of "healthy" dining, with a number of high-profile chains opening and more on the way.

Seasons 52, True Food Kitchen and LYFE Kitchen are among the big players who've set up shop in DFW. And more are on the way: Modmarket, a new fast-casual healthy chain from Denver, will open four branches here, with the first coming to Flower Mound in September.

We suddenly have juice bars on every block. Kale salad on every table. We're swimming in sweet potato, quinoa and tofu. You'd think, after decades of cheese enchiladas and rib-eye steaks, that we'd be the last place a healthy menu would succeed. But it's for those very reasons that we've become the most fertile ground in the country for a healthy restaurant revolution.

We're prosperous, young and restaurant-obsessed. We're also short on healthy options and historically susceptible to the lure of chains.

Modmarket co-founder Anthony Pigliacampo calls Dallas "the ultimate frontier." He sees parallels between Dallas and Denver, where Modmarket, known for printing nutritional information on its receipts, was founded in 2009.

"Dallas reminds me a lot of Denver," he says. "The southern part of Denver is the quintessential commuter suburb. They built the whole thing at once 20 years ago, and it has every chain known to mankind, but nothing localized or interesting.

"After we opened a store there, customers said thank you, we wanted something better for our families. In the past 10 years, Denver has grown up, and I feel like Dallas could do the same."

We do have a few pioneers such as vegan favorite Spiral Diner in Dallas and Fort Worth, Be Raw Food & Juice in Preston Center, upscale salad chain Snappy Salads, and gluten-free spot Kozy Kitchen in Uptown and Farmers Branch. But we have greater untapped potential.

"You always hear that Dallas is a restaurant city, and I'd go down there and it was basically all the same thing," Pigliacampo says. "Other than tons of Whole Foods Markets opening, there was not a lot of change. In the last couple years, these kinds of restaurants have succeeded in other parts of the country. There's a lot of people with decent paying jobs, families, and a lot of people we think want to eat better."

Paula Sepulvado, owner of Be Raw Food & Juice, says Dallas represents a hot market.

"All of these places are coming here because there's opportunity, that's why," she says. "It's easier here than a place like California, because there's more competition there. In California, you have lots of little places like Be Raw. There's none of that in Dallas, so it's wide open."

Since she took over the raw-food restaurant in July 2012, she's seen the interest in healthy dining increase. "Just look at all the juice bars opening," she says. "I think the time is right. The awareness is there."

Pigliacampo credits that to television and social media.

"Food Network is one of the highest-rated channels on TV and it has exposed people to what good food is," he says. "And I think iPhones have made a huge difference. People take photographs of food, and visual quality is becoming important.

"If you go to a Chili's and get a chicken cutlet with the painted-on stripes, nobody is going to take a photo of that. You take photos of better food. It raises the bar. The aesthetic gets slightly healthier. More people are subscribing to theory that 'better for you' is not a fad; it's what the future is."

We've also gotten younger, with the median age in Dallas now at 31 years old. Younger diners are more focused on healthier food. In a study by the Hartman Group, 12 percent of Millennials said they were vegetarians, compared to 4 percent of Gen X'ers and 1 percent of baby boomers.

Making it easier on those Millennials are exciting improvements in the technology of healthy food, says James Scott, who organizes a monthly meet-up for vegans in Dallas and who founded the annual Texas Veggie Fair, which this year takes place on October 19.

"There are so many more options, and the technology of 'alternative' foods like Beyond Meat chicken and Just Mayo eggless mayonnaise has gotten to the point where they're just as good as the original," he says. "People see movies like Forks Over Knives and become more aware of how food affects your health. You see the results in campaigns like Meatless Mondays — those are definitely taking off not only in the corporate world but also in schools and cities making it a part of their meals they provide."

Last but not least, people's health problems and their kids are driving a lot of this change, Pigliacampo says. A 2013 report by the NPD Group found that one third of adults in the United States said they wanted to cut down on gluten in their diet.

"If you have a kid who's gluten-free or has an allergy, where can you eat out as a family?" he says. "You want to eat somewhere where the kid doesn't feel weird. One of the reasons we're popular is that it's comfortable taking everyone. It's the veto vote, when you have a group of people and one says no, we're not going to eat there. You want a restaurant that can make everybody happy."

Photo by David Fox

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Hot Dog News

Shorty's Coneys & Cocktails to dish sophisticated hot dogs in McKinney

thembites.com

Coney-style hot dogs will be on the menu at Shorty's Coneys & Cocktails.

A fun casual restaurant concept from a savvy player is coming to McKinney. Called Shorty's, it'll open in McKinney's charming Historic Downtown Square at 109 N. Kentucky St., where it will channel a quintessential Northeast-style hot dog shop.

According to owner Bryan McVay, it'll open in mid-March.

McVay is a food & beverage veteran who's worked in management and corporate finance for hospitality groups such as FB Society. He's also a native of Pittsburgh who worked at such a shop in his teens.

"In that part of the country, every town has a hot dog shop, and I worked at one through my high school days," McVay says.

But Shorty's is more than a hot dog shop. The full name is Shorty's Coneys & Cocktails, and it will surely serve hot dogs — but also burgers, sandwiches, and bar-style appetizers like fried pickles, not to mention a full bar.

McVay's approach is informed by the street-style food culture of big cities like New York. "I'm keeping in mind portability, where you grab a bite, and that's how we'll package everything," he says.

Mostly everything on the menu will be priced at $10 or less.

"Downtown McKinney has plenty of nice sit-down restaurants but we wanted to provide something not already offered, with good-quality food," he says.

During the day, Shorty's focus will be primarily on food: a place for McKinney visitors, couples, and families with kids to grab a bite. Later in the day, the emphasis will shift to a pre-date-night destination, a place to get a cocktail before or after dinner.

"We've kept the menu narrow, but with a goal to do everything at the highest level," McVay says. To that end, he recruited chef John Franke to consult. The centerpiece of the menu will be a Coney-style hot dog.

"Our Coney dog comes topped with chili, chopped white onions, and mustard," McVay says. "Although it's associated with Coney Island in New York, we're doing a style often found in Detroit. Our goal is to offer a fantastic Coney-style dog, but a cheffed-up version."

Other menu items include:

Smashburgers including one with hot pepper, bacon, BBQ sauce, and chili cheese
Chicken ranch sandwich
Filet O'Whitefish
Philly cheesesteak
Classic BLT
Haley's Killer Chili — "In Texas, they'll kill you if you put beans in your chili — well this chili has beans in it," McVay says.

Plus sides and snacks such as fried pickle chips, mozzarella bites, poutine, chili cheese fries, and "fancy fries" — cooked in trendy beef tallow.

This circa-1920 photo shows the facade of 109 N. Kentucky St. in McKinney Historic Square with the original "Drinks Lunches" sign.Shorty's/City of McKinney

The vision
McVay began his hospitality career with Hard Rock Cafe, and has worked for concepts such as House of Blues, Fox Sports Grill, and FB Society, where he lent a hand in the creation of Legacy Food Hall in Plano.

"Along the way, I always had this itch to do my own thing — connecting to my early days, and what made me fall in love with the restaurant industry, which was the idea of creating your own brand," he says.

The idea of Shorty's is rooted in nostalgia.

"My idea was to do a Northeast shotgun-style bar that has evolved over time so you feel the nostalgia around you," he says.

The right location was important. It took him four years to find the McKinney storefront, most recently a coffeehouse called Snug on the Square which closed during the pandemic, and previously home to an antique store, a rug store, and a bakery & coffee shop.

"Many of the buildings in downtown McKinney are 150 years old," he says. "Retrofitting a building that old and figuring out how to add modern necessities like ventilation and grease traps can be a challenge."

But it also means that the building comes with vintage treasures — from pressed tin panels on the walls to an original wood floor. McVay worked with the Texas Historical Society to preserve elements of the facade and retain some of the building's original character.

Over the entry, he's installed a cool retro "Coneys & Cocktails" sign that looks like it was made in the 1930s.

"I worked with two longtime sign makers who crafted the sign in the old-school style with blown glass," McVay says. "It took a few tries to get a sign that met the approval of the city of McKinney. We found a photo of the downtown square from decades ago which showed an original neon sign on the building. It said 'drinks & lunches.' So we recreated that sign — the exact same look, shape, and feel — but it says 'Coneys & Cocktails' instead."

"I'm trying to recreate what it might have looked like if it was a bar, 150 years ago," he says.

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