The banh mi landscape in Dallas is about to take a hit: Banh Shop, the fast-casual Vietnamese restaurant on SMU Boulevard, will close on January 28. In real time, that gives fans 24 hours to get their last fix.
Banh Shop is the concept that was developed by a team that included Dallas-based consultant Mark Brezinski and Dallas restaurateurs Braden and Yasmin Wages, owners of Malai Kitchen in West Village.
Envisioned as an upscale Southeast Asian street stall market, it's named for the banh mi, the sandwich that has become a trendy dish at all kinds of restaurants, not just Asian. The banh mi sandwich comes on a French baguette and is filled with meats and pickled vegetables.
At Banh Shop, filling options include steak, pork meatball, chicken, and an especially succulent tofu. The menu also offers Americanized sandwiches such as steak and egg, plus salads, soups, and wok-fired bowls.
Banh Shop was originally developed in 2014 for Yum! Brands, which also owns Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut. The SMU branch opened in September in a former auto repair shop which was given a thorough makeover. The DFW Airport outlet opened two months later.
Spokesman Rick VanWarner says that the closure is due to a shift in ownership.
"Banh Shop was previously a project of Yum! Brands, and they remain an investor," VanWarner says. "But the rights to the concept were acquired by an investment group, and the location near SMU was not part of the transaction."
According to VanWarner the majority stake has been sold to a Dallas-based investment group.
The DFW Airport branch, located in Terminal D near Gate D10, remains open. "Banh Shop is not going away, and future openings will be a mix of all kinds of locations," he says.
Actor Jimmy Stewart, thanks to movies such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Shop Around the Corner, and The Philadelphia Story, had the reputation early in his career as the everyman in Hollywood, someone to whom most audiences could relate. That became even more true when Stewart entered the military during World War II, a period that is explored in the new biopic, Jimmy.
The film was co-produced with Fort Worth-based Papaian Studios and received a red-carpet premiere as part of the Lone Star Film Festival on Wednesday, November 4. Stewart had several ties to Fort Worth, which were celebrated at the event.
Stewart (KJ Apa) was riding high in 1941, coming off his first (and only) Oscar win for The Philadelphia Story. As depicted in the film, his life is upended when he receives a military draft notice as the U.S. prepares for war. He’s determined to serve, but people like studio head Louis B. Mayer (Jason Alexander) try to talk him out of it. Already an experienced pilot, he eventually joins the war in Europe, flying the B-24 bomber.
Despite his celebrity status, Stewart requests to be treated the same as any other soldier, which means flying multiple missions over enemy territory. He moves up the ranks, becoming a leader tasked with, among other things, reporting the deaths of service members to their families. He also starts a friendship that develops into a romance with Lady Julia (Kara Killmer), giving him a distraction from the horrors of war.
Directed by Aaron Burns and written by Justin Strawhand, the film has the clear goal of being a hagiography for Stewart, showing all of his good qualities and few of his bad ones. In fact, the character of Stewart is harder on himself than the actual movie is, chastising himself over the deaths of fellow soldiers that he likely could not have prevented. The filmmakers go to great lengths to show how good and well-respected Stewart was, something that may well be true, but doesn’t make for great drama.
The bulk of the film features Stewart at war, following him and others as they fly multiple missions and commiserate over the price of combat. The sequences are fine, but the film’s budget does not appear to be high, and so the CGI needed to recreate the scenes is noticeably subpar. Because Burns and Strawhand usually keep to surface-level storytelling and don’t go deep on any character besides Stewart, his time at war is engaging but slight.
The film is bookended by Stewart and Frank Capra (Max Casella) making It’s a Wonderful Life, Stewart’s first film after coming back from war. It’s here where the movie becomes most interesting as Stewart, still affected by his war experience, struggles to bring the character of George Bailey to life. The behind-the-scenes look at the film-within-the-film and the recreations of its iconic scenes are catnip for anyone who knows/loves the Christmas classic.
Apa, best known for starring as Archie on the TV show Riverdale, does extremely well as Stewart. He nails Stewart’s quavering voice and the way he ambles about plays right into the actor’s established persona. Casella and Killmer get the most play in supporting roles, and each does solid work as characters trying to understand Stewart. Alexander, Sarah Drew as Hedda Hopper, and Rob Riggle as a colonel each go a little too big in their respective parts.
Jimmy is probably best watched as an approximation of the man Stewart was in the 1940s, not as something that’s completely true to life. The film elides or stretches the truth on multiple occasions, which is par for the course in biopics. It could have used some stronger storytelling to make Stewart feel like a real person, not merely a replica of the famous actor.
