Fish Dish

New Dallas seafood bistro boldly goes where Tallywackers went before

Look for steaks and seafood on the menu at Roux Bistro.

Photo courtesy of Roux Bistro

A Lemmon Avenue address with a shall we say colorful history has a new restaurant ready to roll. Called Roux Bistro, it'll open at 4218 Lemmon Ave., perhaps better known as "the space where Tallywackers used to be."

Tallywackers was the ill-fated experiment that some called the "male version of Hooter's," with male waiters clad in little more than their underwear. It closed in August 2016 after a year.

Scheduled to open in March, Roux comes from Theodore Koutsogeorgas, a veteran restaurateur in Dallas who once owned a seafood restaurant in Dallas called Theodore's. Not The Theodore at Northpark Center but Theodore's, a casual spot off Walnut Hill and 75 which was open in the '80s and '90s.

Fish will surely be on the menu at Roux, although Koutsogeorgas says it'll be more bistro than seafood house. "There'll be fresh seafood, because we do have experience with that, but the restaurant will have Mediterranean and Southern influences," he says. "That's where we get the name, for roux, the Louisiana-style sauce."

The menu will include steaks, chicken, and house-made pastas. There'll be calamari, mussels, oysters Rockefeller, shrimp cocktail, and crab claws. Koutsogeorgas is Greek so there'll be a Greek salad, but also an arugula salad and a Caesar.

But his goal is to keep things casual and affordable. "It's not going to be fine dining, no white tablecloths," he says. "We want to do tacos, burgers, fried seafood baskets, po' boys, and lobster rolls."

It'll have a full bar, and they'll do brunch on Saturdays and Sundays.

Even before the sad demise of Tallywacker's, that location has seen more than its share of concepts come and go: from Lolita's to Catalina's to Cafe Cancun to something called Honey Shack. Despite its turnover, Koutsogeorgas — also owns Fajita Pita Vertical Grill, a restaurant inside the Collin Creek Mall in Plano — believes the space has promise.

"I looked at that location five years ago but it was leased to someone else," he says. "It became available again, so we're going to give it a try."

openings

Coffee News

East Dallas coffee shop Killer Joe crackles with sharp New York style

Killer Joe

Killer Joe Coffee

A hip new coffee shop is energizing a busy corner in East Dallas: Called Killer Joe, it's a new shop at 108 N. Fitzhugh Ave. right on the northeast corner of Columbia Avenue, next to (and in the same building as) Pupusas To Go.

Killer Joe is from Christine Sweet and Christian Napolitano, who moved from New York to Dallas in 2022 in search of entrepreneurial opportunity.

"We had been wanting to open up a business in New York for a long time," Christine says. “After the pandemic, it was really hard doing business there. We were looking for a good place to move that offered an opportunity to open our business."

Christine previously worked in travel/destination marketing, living in different places around the world. Christian was in hospitality, having worked in high-end restaurants in Manhattan, most recently at Bond Street Sushi in Soho.

Their goal: to bring a little New York culture to Dallas.

“We are more than a coffee shop — we're a place for foodies and musicophiles, we are really into music and rock & roll. Our shop is not a sleepy, quiet coffee shop," Christine says.

They serve notice of their intentions on the exterior with a quirky, personal mural by Anthony Z. Padilla, rendered in taxicab yellow, with elegant line drawings of the Statue of Liberty and highway-style signs that say "Now leaving New York" and "Welcome to Texas."

The interior is casual-chic, with pale wood furniture and an original cement floor that still sports intentional patches of old paint. The walls have a mix of B&W vintage photos and the occasional cowboy hat. The space was for many years a closed-in bar called Los Dos Reales; but now, the building boasts expansive windows that look out on Fitzhugh and create a bright and sunny space.

For their coffee program, they use organic espresso beans and make their drinks in an Italian Sanremo machine. They serve all the classics plus signature drinks such as French Toast Latte, Sea Salt Caramel de Leche, and Caliente Mocha with a hint of cayenne pepper.

Seasonal drinks include a pistachio caramel matcha latte — featuring toasted pistachios like a baklava, but balanced by the earthiness of the matcha. Other specialty drinks include rose water matcha, orange blossom matcha spritz, and cucumber lemonade.

Panini at Killer JoeKiller Joe

They also serve food, including breakfast all day: steak & eggs, avocado toast, and bagels with plain, scallion or vegan cream cheese. The "Spaghetti Western" is a twist on the traditional ham & cheese sandwich with spicy capicola, roasted tomato, Calabrian pepper sauce, and chimichurri on toasted ciabatta.

Bread is from Empire Baking Company and the bagels are from Shug's.

At lunch, they serve an umami tuna melt; a "K-Pop Cuban" with ham and cheese, plus kimchi pickles and wasabi mayo; and The Texican, with soyrizo spicy sausage, cheddar roasted poblano peppers, tomato, and avocado.

Reeves Family Farm in Princeton provides fruits and vegetables, and DiveDWN brings their microgreens. Pastries are baked in house and sauces such as black olive pesto and Killer chipotle sauce are made from scratch.

“We are trying to blend our edgy New York style with a Southern Texas flair," Christine says.

They're open daily from 7am-3 pm, with a late-hour program every second Saturday featuring live DJs; people gather inside and outside the shop for music, food, and drinks.

"This community is just so great, very eclectic, and has really embraced our style," Christine says. In fact, a few customers had a tattoo made at neighbor Franklins Tattoo and Supply with the coffee shop's skull logo.

"I had to follow and get one done too," she says.

coffee openings