Holiday Entertaining Help

Dallas entrepreneur arms hosts with holiday entertaining essentials in a box

Growing up in a home with a master entertainer for a mother has its perks. Dallas native Stacia Marlow remembers helping her mom throw every kind of party imaginable, so entertaining has always come naturally to her.

Marlow’s inner hostess resurfaced when she assisted a frantic friend who needed to plan a Thanksgiving feast for 24 people. After Marlow provided her friend with link after link, directing her on what to order to create her ideal tablescape, her friend said, “I wish I could buy all of these table decorations in one box.”

That was Marlow’s light bulb moment. Sparkle & Dine, an elegant table-styling kit in a box, was launched in September.

“Our table-styling kits are inspired by fashion and entertainment and are thoughtfully curated to tell a story and set the stage for an occasion,” Marlow says.

Sparkle & Dine provides hosts with table runner, centerpiece, charger plates, cloth napkins and place cards, which can be shipped to their doorsteps within three days. With the exception of the place cards, of course, everything is reusable, so everyone has plenty of ammunition left in their entertaining arsenal for the next affair.

Marlow works out of Coppell to build each box, which she fills with products that range from striped runners handmade in Dallas to various Saro linens from California. She also frequents the Dallas Market Center to load up on goods from K&K Interiors and Accent Decor.

Themes may include Feather Thanksgiving, Snow Queen, O Christmas Tree, Retro Glam and more; there is also a build-your-own option. The complete kits range from $129 to $189, and users can also download menus with recipes and party-planning checklists directly from the company’s website.

Marlow is partial to decorating Thanksgiving tables because it evokes the feelings of home, family and love — the three things she believes every busy homemaker should concentrate on while entertaining.

“I hope Sparkle & Dine inspires you to invite your friends and family to your home to celebrate life,” Marlow says. “Simplified entertaining is finally here.”

Sparkle & Dine boxes come filled with all the essentials to create a beautiful tablescape.

Photo courtesy of Sparkle & Dine

Sparkle & Dine boxes come filled with all the essentials to create a beautiful tablescape.

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Kitchen News

Kitchen temple Sur La Table to close Knox Street Dallas location

Sur La Table

A longtime home cook favorite in Dallas' Knox Street district is closing: Sur La Table, the nationwide specialty retailer of cookware, kitchen electrics, and bakeware, will close its location at 4525 Cole St. at the end of January.

According to a spokesperson, the location is permanently closing on January 25.

Sales at the store have already begun, with 30 percent off everything in the store.

Sur La Table opened their first store in Seattle's Pike Place Market in 1972. From the beginning, their founder Shirley Collins partnered with the world’s best chefs and kitchen brands to bring customers trusted tools to make delicious memories.

Their in-house chefs teach 60,000 cooking classes a year to more than 700,000 people in kitchens and now online.

In addition to offering services like knife-sharpening, and selling gourmet goods which were not available elsewhere at the time, Sur La Table has played host to many chefs and cookbook authors over the years.

They were a "foodie" presence before there was such a thing when they first came to Dallas in 1998, opening off Knox Street, back when it was still a darling collection of shops and not the overdeveloped high-rise hell it is today.

It's tempting to blame the closure on factors such as online shopping; and Sur La Table did go through a pandemic-induced bankruptcy in 2020 when it closed nearly half of its stores.

However, the store's fortunes were not helped when it was forced to depart its original eccentric location at 4527 Travis St. for an invisible storefront on Cole Street, in order to make room for the Knox Hotel and Residences, a 140-room hotel managed by Auberge Resorts Collection, plus 48 ultra-luxury condominiums.

There are two other Sur La Table locations in the DFW area including Preston Royal which opened in 2017, and Southlake which opened in 2015, both of which will remain open. Two other locations — in Fort Worth at the Waterside shopping center, and Plano at Lakeside Village — closed in 2020.