This Week's Hot Headlines

Battle of best new restaurants tops this week's 5 hottest Dallas headlines

Editor's note: A lot happened this week, so here's your chance to get caught up. Read on for the week's most popular headlines.

1. 16 best new restaurants in Dallas compete for coveted Tastemaker title. Probably the most popular part of CultureMap's Tastemaker Awards, our annual celebration of the best in Dallas food and drink, is the category of Best New Restaurant. It's the only category decided by you, via a bracket-style competition where 16 new restaurants go head to head. You can vote once a day for your favorite. To vote, click here. Don't delay: The first bracket ends on Monday, August 2.

2. 3 fun weekend events in Dallas-Fort Worth call it quits due to COVID-19. As COVID-19 rushes back for its great summer encore among (mainly) the unvaccinated in Dallas-Fort Worth, it's bringing with it the dreaded cancellation of fun things, which fans of fun things suffered through in 2020. Hopefully last weekend was not the start of an un-fun trend, but three event cancellations all citing the same reasons warranted a warning.

3. Ex-employee sues Dallas restaurant group for discriminatory practices. A Dallas restaurant group has been sued for discrimination by a former manager. A lawsuit was filed on July 19 against Vandelay Hospitality Group, which owns East Hampton Sandwich Company, Hudson House, Brentwood, and Drake's Hollywood, by Glenn Govias, a former manager at Drake's Hollywood, alleging widespread discriminatory practices.

4. Award-winning dumplings star at new dim sum restaurant in Addison. A new restaurant is bringing some juicy dumplings to town: It's called Bushi Bushi, and it's in Addison at 4930 Belt Line Rd. #100, in the former Cafe Brazil space, where it's doing a soft opening over the next few weeks.

5. Exciting new house of comedy vows to bring Vegas polish to Plano. There's something funny going on in Plano: Called The House of Comedy, it's a new venue opening at The Shops at Legacy, from two players with decades of experience in the business. It'll open in early fall at 7301 Lone Star Dr. in a space previously occupied by The Blue Martini.

Your mission: To try all of these 16 new restaurants.

Hawthorn

Your mission: To try all of these 16 new restaurants.

Shaq News

Shaq hits Irving 7-Eleven to pick up ready-to-drink blueberry lemonade

7-Eleven

Shaq at 7-Eleven

Multi-faceted celebrity Shaquille O'Neal recently hit a Dallas-area 7-Eleven, and we got the photo to prove it. The NBA Hall of Famer made a surprise appearance on June 17 at the 7-Eleven at 7480 N. SH 161 Service Rd., in Irving to promote his latest business venture, a brand of ready-to-drink alcoholic beverages called BeatBox, in which both Shaq and entrepreneur Mark Cuban are investors.

BeatBox was founded in Austin as an MBA project by three University of Texas students in 2013. They received one of the largest deals in Shark Tank history with Cuban investing $1 million for a third of the company in 2014.

They consist of fruit-flavored alcoholic beverages that measure 11.1 percent alcohol — more than beer but less than wine — in flavors such as watermelon lemonade, orange blast, lemon squeeze, and cherry limeade. (The alcohol they use is wine.) They're $4 for a 17-ounce carton and are sold at supermarkets such as Kroger, liquor stores such as Total Wine — and 7-Eleven stores, duh.

Shaq, who tours the world as DJ Diesel, kept seeing BeatBox at many of the where he performed and was impressed by the brand’s passion for live music and fanbase. He asked Cuban about investing in BeatBox and Cuban encouraged him to invest.

BeatBox solicited their new investor to collaborate on a flavor: Blueberry Lemonade, which they introduced in March.

Shaq was joined at the 7-Eleven by the company founders, along with fans, store patrons, and a phalanx of police officers.

Shaq is known for his fun-loving presence on the basketball court but he's also a Dallas homeowner and a busy entrepreneur: founder of the Shaq’s Bass All-Stars Festival, where BeatBox has been a beverage vendor, as well as a restaurateur in his own right, having recently opened a location of his Big Chicken chain in Fort Worth in 2024.

celebrities