News You Can Eat

Toast this chapter of Dallas restaurant news with craft beer and cake

Dallas gets another craft brewer, plus some new restaurants in the 'burbs. Look for more doughnuts on the docket, and who doesn't love cake?

Those are some of the highlights of this tasty collection of restaurant news. Keep reading.

Keller finally gets its own brewery. Shannon Brewing Company, which celebrates its arrival with a grand opening on September 20. The brewery will open with five beers: pale ale, Irish red, All American Blonde, chocolate stout and IPA. All will be poured at the event, which runs from noon-4 pm. For $10, you get three pints and a souvenir glass.

A second branch of Black Walnut Cafe has opened, this one on North Denton Tap Road in Coppell. The Houston-based chain prefers the suburbs; it opened its first Dallas-area branch in Allen in July.

Lewisville gets a Rockfish Seafood & Grill, at 4740 State Hwy. 121, where it will debut a menu with not only seafood, but also rib-eye steak and baby-back ribs. Rockfish has been under new leadership since 2010; according to president and CEO Tommy Lee, this is the first new location since 2009. The concept, which started in 1998, will undergo a transformation in the next few years. The Lewisville store represents the new direction.

In One Arts Plaza, Proof + Pantry is open, but Fedorahas closed.

After five years, Afghan Grill in North Dallas has closed, allowing chef-owner Matt Pikar to focus his time and energy on Nora Restaurant & Bar. According to a spokeswoman, the lease was going to be up anyway, and there's greater opportunity on Greenville Avenue. Nora is open for lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday.

Pizza chain Fireside Pieshas a new owner: the Chalak Metra Group, owner of Genghis Grill, which took over four branches — Henderson Avenue, Inwood Road, Grapevine and Plano — from Consilient in July. The Fort Worth location, now called Thirteen Pies, was not part of the deal.

In Trinity Groves, Cake Bar will open on September 18. The menu boasts a variety of cakes, available by the slice, such as Key lime, Neapolitan and coconut. Owner Tracy German, who grew up in Georgia and attended culinary school in Seattle, has been selling cakes out of her house for nearly 14 years.

A new Dunkin' Donuts is open in Rockwall, at 3035 Ridge Rd; another branch will open in Lewisville in late September. Both will serve the chain's seasonal pumpkin goods, including pumpkin doughnuts and pumpkin latte drinks.

At Grain, the restaurant inside the Hilton Dallas Park Cities Hotel, chef James Music and his team have developed a farm-to-table menu, with items sourced from the Dallas Farmers Market. Options include heirloom tomato salad; crab, avocado and mango tower; tenderloin tips with tobacco fried 1015 onions; and Windy Farm rib-eye.

Big chain Del Taco has a line of "fresca bowls" in three varieties: Southwest chicken and veggie, pollo asado chicken, and roasted veggie with green chile sauce. They're served on a bed of fresca lime rice and seasoned black beans.

Design District restaurant Oak has a new weekday lunch menu. Dishes include chilled almond soup; Canary melon salad; eggplant trio with masala, peanut, okra and yogurt; and a $15 Wagyu beef burger with bacon and Manchego cheese.

At Urban Rio in Plano, this month's featured tamale is called the Hatchmale. Isn't that adorable? Hatch chile + tamale, see? It has Hatch chile in the masa dough, and it's filled with Hatch chiles and Chihuahua cheese, topped with Hatch chile verde sauce, and served with rice and beans. There's also a Hatch cocktail made with Jose Cuervo silver tequila, Cointreau, Hatch chile peppers and fresh lime juice.

Noted for its grilled cheese sandwiches, Ruthie's Rolling Cafe has added mac and cheese to its menu. It can be customized with toppings such as brisket, grilled chicken, bacon, tomatoes, caramelized onions, jalapeños and blue cheese.

Deep Ellum's Monkey King Noodle Co. is extending its dinner hours to Thursdays from 6-10 pm; it is currently open for dinner on Fridays and Saturdays.

Rabbit Hole Brewing has a new beer: Off With Your Red, a red IPA that the brewery describes as having a substantial malt backbone and dark ruby/garnet color, with a 7.9 percent ABV. It launches September 23 at Jack Mac's Swill & Grill in Plano and at Oak Street Drafthouse in Denton.

The Hilton Anatole has appointed Matthew Leonard as executive sous chef, reporting to executive chef David Scalise. Leonard has worked in hotels and resorts across the nation, including time as the executive chef of the Montage Deer Valley in Park City, Utah. The Anatole is home to five restaurants and bars, including SĒR Steak + Spirits, Media Grill + Bar and Gossip Bar.

Design District restaurant FT33 has a new chef de cuisine in Jason Ferraro, formerly of Hibiscus and The Porch. New faces behind the bar include Tristan Price and Robert McLemore.

Shannon Brewing Company has been planning for this moment.

Photos by Barbara A. Berry of Legacy Studios

Shannon Brewing Company has been planning for this moment.

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Taco News

Award-winning Dallas restaurant Taco Y Vino branches out to buzzy 'burb

Taco Y Vino

An award-winning taco restaurant in Dallas is bringing its taco magic to Garland: Taco Y Vino, the innovative gourmet taqueria and casual wine bar in Oak Cliff, is opening a second location in downtown Garland, in a darling storefront at 706 Main St. that was formerly home to Jim's Barber Shop.

Taco Y Vino is the brainchild of the ultra-charismatic Jimmy Contreras, a hospitality veteran who cut his teeth at Pappas Restaurants then worked for more than 15 years in the wine industry, representing boutique wineries and helping restaurants build their wine lists.

He developed the original idea of a restaurant doing a fine-dining twist on tacos, along with an affordable wine list, and opened Taco Y Vino in 2018. Its combination of good food and wine at low prices made it an instant favorite.

"We always want to be affordable — a place you can go daily to grab bottle of wine and tacos, but also nice enough to bring out of town guests," he says.

The menu features a "three tacos for $14" that lets you mix and match fillings like cochinita pibil (pulled pork braised in bitter orange & achiote), pork carnitas, carne asada, barbacoa, brisket guiso, ahi tuna, tempura catfish or shrimp, chicken tinga with guacamole, black bean & cheese, and fried avocado.

Shareable dishes include jalapeno poppers stuffed with catfish and shrimp; and avocado "toastadas" — a witty twist on avocado toast, featuring corn tostadas topped with guacamole, pico de gallo, lettuce, and pickled onions.

They do brunch — but it's every day from 11:30 am-3 pm, with dishes like Brisket Con Huevo, featuring stewed brisket and scrambled eggs on a flour tortilla.

Everything about the place is much like Contreras himself: approachable, friendly, and fun, and has generated intense goodwill and loyalty for the restaurant among locals and foodies alike. There is no one who does not love Jimmy.

Jimmy Contreras with a glass of wine.Courtesy

"Oak Cliff has been amazing to us," Contreras says. "We're so grateful for the support from neighbors, diners, and wine lovers, and we have great employees who give a sense that they're happy to be there, which has definitely been a big part of our success."

With the original location humming along, Contreras began considering another location. It only took one visit to downtown Garland and he and his business partner Brian White were smitten.

"We immediately fell in love," he says. "The area has great old buildings and businesses like Intrinsic Brewing, Fortunate Son, Rosalind Coffee, Latham Bakery, plus music-forward places like guitar shops and Dead Wax, the record store. It just felt like a cool place to hang out."

Garland has been undergoing a major transformation, one that includes a big revitalization of the Downtown Garland Historic District.

The building they're going into was built in 1928 and they're doing as little as possible to alter the original structure. It's 1300 square feet, with a front and back patio, patio being part of Taco Y Vino's DNA. (They even won a CultureMap Tastemaker Award in 2024 for Best Patio, hoo-rah.)

"We did remove the stucco wall so that the original brick could come through, and we're putting in doors and windows from that timeframe to match," he says. "We just want to keep it as is."

The menu will be the same, with one exception.

"Garland will have not only wine but cocktails," Contreras says. "You would not believe how many people walk in and ask about margaritas. So we'll do a frozen margarita, a paloma, ranch water, a sage margarita on the rocks — but not a full bar."

Their planned for opening date is the end of summer.

Contreras' idea when he opened was to have a business where he did not always have to answer to somebody, to not have a boss. "But every person who comes in is my boss," he says. "I think that service ideology is something you can never lose."

tacos openings