A professional football player has opened a charming, family-run bar in Uptown Dallas. Called Harris' House of Heroes, it's a new spot from De'Vante Harris, who played college football at Texas A&M and was signed by the New Orleans Saints.
The bar opened on January 1 in a location with its own special history: at 3403 McKinney Ave., in the space that was previously The Loon.
Harris' House of Heroes, or "HHH" for short, is a casual, comfortable bar where you can get food and drinks and watch some football, but can also scale up with a DJ and bottle service.
In the running of the bar, Harris is being assisted by his brother Eric Reed, who is chief of operations, and his mother, who is chief financial officer.
"It's a family business," Reed says. "My brother always wanted to have a bar where he could give back to the neighborhood heroes — not super-heroes, but the people he looked up to."
They also wanted to share some of their passions, including a menu of comfort food dishes, and fun diversions like dominoes and the card game spades.
"This is how we grew up, what we grew up eating, what we grew up doing," Reed says. "Any time there's a reunion or a family gathering, we play spades. It's like a tradition."
He describes their menu as comfort food with an upscale twist. Their chef is Darius Lewis, and their recipes are culled from family favorites.
There are turkey legs, loaded baked potatoes, shrimp & grits, and wings, both breaded and "naked." Their lemon pepper wings have already been called the best in Dallas, and they have another wing treatment that Reed says you can't find anywhere else.
"It's our own flavor, honey ranch, and people have been going crazy about it," he says.
They're open every day from 3 pm-2 am, and this being Uptown, there is brunch on weekends from 11 am-3 pm, when they have chicken & waffles and greens — "greens on Sunday, that's real traditional for us," he says.
Reed is a former athlete himself who played basketball. In fact, their entire family is allstar — his sister runs track at Texas Tech and his father also played at Texas A&M, as well as for the Saints, the Dallas Cowboys, and the Philadelphia Eagles.
But for now, Reed and Harris have set their sights on the exciting world of food and beverage with their cool new hang.
"We wanted to find a way to tie into the neighborhood, and bring our roots to Uptown," he says.
