Yogis Say What?

Lululemon at NorthPark Center takes oddly aggressive stance against Dallas charity

The windows at Lululemon Athletica in NorthPark Center are attracting more attention than usual thanks to an oddly worded advertisement: "We do partners yoga, not partners card," the window reads. It's an obvious reference to the flagship fundraiser for the Family Place, a beloved Dallas charity that provides support for battered women and children.

What's less clear is why Lululemon has a beef with Partners Card. The $70 card purchase goes directly to the Family Place, and card holders in turn receive a 20 percent discount in October and November from participating retailers — a long list that doesn't include Lululemon.

Although the company isn't participating in the standard sense, a representative insists it is working with Family Place. After customers expressed concern on Facebook and posted photos of the window, Lululemon posted the following statement on Facebook.

The intention behind the window decal was to share our love for yoga, not to offend our community. Although we choose not to participate in Partner's Card, we choose to give back in a different way. We are working in collaboration with Family Place to offer the gift of yoga, and what we can create together.

We reached out to Family Place to see if there is an existing relationship with Lululemon and what it might entail, and Paige Flink emailed the following statement:

Every Partners Card we sell at the Family Place provides a night of safety and shelter for victims of family violence. We understand that not every retailer can give the 20% discount, but we are thankful for the hundreds who do and for the thousands of donors who buy a card. We look forward to working out a way Lululemon can join our important mission to end violence in the homes of Dallas County.

For more on this issue, read Lululemon tries to make amends after lying about existing Family Place partnership.

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To-Go News

Dallas ghost kitchen to open spinoff in Fairview with innovative extras

Revolving Kitchen

One ghost kitchen coming up (to Fairview).

A trend-setting ghost kitchen that's served many a meal to Dallas diners is expanding: Revolving Kitchen, a locally-owned outfit that first debuted in Garland in 2020, will spin off a second location in the northern 'burb of Fairview with some extra features that break the mold of the ghost kitchen concept.

According to a release, it'll open at Fairview Town Center at 184 Town Place, in summer 2023.

Revolving Kitchen is a commissary kitchen and virtual food hall founded by Tyler Shin, with a goal of helping food entrepreneurs start up a business. They rent out kitchens for private use on a short-term (hourly) or long-term basis, which includes infrastructure, equipment, and resources.

The Garland location has 25 commercial kitchens, serving sushi, crabcakes, BBQ, wings, pudding, Bundt cakes, salad in a cup, and more.

Dubbed Revolving Kitchen 2.0, the Fairview location will be larger, with 37,000 square feet and 34 fully-equipped commercial kitchens, in five different sizes ranging from 260 to 1,100 square feet. It'll also have mezzanine area for offices.

Like Garland, the new Fairview location will have a designated grab-and-go marketplace area with items from Revolving Kitchen's tenant restaurants for purchase.

But it will also have some ground-breaking innovations:

full service bar serving alcoholic beverages
indoor dining room
glass enclosed showroom kitchen in the middle of the dining room for cooking classes, chef demos, and restaurant tastings

The restaurants will be integrated into Revolving Kitchen's Virtual Food Hall app, allowing customers to bundle items together from various Revolving Kitchen restaurants into one transaction.

Other high-tech features include kiosk ordering and an in-house robot to deliver food to the front for pick-up.

The Garland Revolving Kitchen currently has more than 20 ghost kitchens or culinary businesses, at least seven of which are expected to expand to Fairview, right along with Revolving Kitchen.

It won't stop in Fairview: Shin hopes to expand to four or five locations by the end of 2023. As part-owner of a local restaurant, he understands the hurdles.

“Dallas has lost amazing local restaurants due to high operational costs, skyrocketing real estate prices, and burdensome regulatory requirements," he says. "Revolving Kitchen is here to change that.”

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