Uptown Steak

Glossy Uptown Dallas high-rise hooks up with meat-lover's restaurant

Uptown Dallas has become the new boulevard of meat.

Uptown will get even more meaty when a Fogo de Chao opens in the One Uptown building at 2619 McKinney Ave. The Brazilian-style steakhouse will go on the ground floor of this new residential high-rise, due to open in mid-2016.

This will be the second branch of Fogo de Chao in North Texas. The other branch in Addison was the very first Fogo when it opened in 1997, and among the first to introduce the concept of cooking Brazilian meat over an open fire and carving it tableside from skewers.

One Uptown will boast 20 floors with 198 luxury apartments, a 490-space parking garage, and 26,160 square feet of retail and restaurants.

The Fogo de Chao is anticipated to be a new flagship for the chain, embodying a new urban-style personality with an in-house "Bar Fogo" as well as an expansive street-side patio.

Fogo is one of two restaurant tenants going into the One Uptown building. The other is Style & Grace, a two-story restaurant-bar from Peter Lloyd, jet-setting owner of Fat Rabbit, the bar-restaurant that opened right across the street in the old Sfuzzi's space in January 2015.

Style & Grace will encompass a restaurant on the first floor, an after-dinner lounge on the second floor, a large patio that wraps around the corner of the building, and a pool bar with a 6,000-square-foot pool deck.

Rick Cavenaugh, president of Stoneleigh Companies which is One Uptown's developer, is looking at a fall 2016 opening date for the restaurants. "We just poured concrete on the 10th floor and it's a 20-story building, so we're expecting to top out the building in May," he says.

Fogo will take the north half of One Uptown's restaurant space, facing McKinney Avenue. Style & Grace will look out on Routh Street.

Uptown is turning into carnivore alley, with branches of Perry's Steakhouse & Grille and Morton's, which moved to Uptown in 2011 from its longtime perch in downtown Dallas. Less than a mile away, there's a Texas Land & Cattle, with a similar churrascaria concept as Fogo, and a coming-soon Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steak House, opening at the McKinney & Olive, the office and retail tower, in fall 2016. Meat, everyone!

uptown openings

Pizza News

Donatos Pizza totes its unique crust to new location in Flower Mound

dallas.culturemap.com

Donatos

A pizza chain with a quirky obsession on its crusts is coming to Flower Mound: Donatos Pizza, the franchise famous for spreading its toppings to the very edge of the pizza, will open a location at 1400 Long Prairie Rd. #160.

According to a release, it'll open on December 17.

Donatos Pizza was founded by Jim Grote in Ohio in 1963 from a single stand, and remains family-owned. Their signature is to place the toppings on their pizzas "edge to edge" — for clueless diners who do not like plain crust edges. (Come on, the crust is the best part.)

Their menu features more than a dozen varieties of pizza such as veggie, four cheese, and pepperoni with hot honey. Their signature crust is a thin-crust but they also offer thicker alternatives as well as a cauliflower crust. Pizzas come in a 7-inch individual and go all the way up to a 14-inch large. Prices range from $15 to $25.

Fans appreciate their better-than-average ingredients and describe it as more flavorful compared to other corporate pizza chains, with a crisp thin crust and generous toppings.

In addition to pizza, Donatos' menu includes oven-baked wings, sub sandwiches, including meatball and Italian cold cuts, plus appetizers and salads.

The Flower Mound location will be a family affair, owned by Lynne and Ralph Pence, whose son Travis will oversee day-to-day operations. The Pence family has deep connections to Donatos including the fact that Lynne's sister used to work for the company, while her brother-in-law still does.

"We're from Columbus, Ohio — it is where our kids grew up and where our family is—it also happens to be the hometown and birthplace of Donatos Pizza," Lynne says. "Our daughter in Oklahoma found out Donatos was coming to Edmond, where she lives, and called us. She was so excited that Donatos was finally coming down south and we wanted to be a part of it."

This is the second Donatos in the Dallas area: a location opened in Frisco in November — the first in Texas.

There are currently 470-plus locations in 28 states. That includes 175 stores plus nearly 300 non-traditional locations nationwide, including select Red Robin restaurants, sports, and entertainment venues.

openings pizza