Plus! Sharon Hage
The Lot to bring another beer garden to East Dallas, off Santa Fe Trail
Coming to East Dallas is The Lot, a new yet familiar-seeming restaurant-beer garden set to open Monday, February 25, from restaurateur John McBride, whose family once owned and operated El Fenix.
A release describes The Lot as a new concept, but it has all the tried-and-true indicators of a restaurant-bar opening in Dallas in 2013: beer, East Dallas, beer garden, dog-friendly patio and menu consult from Sharon Hage.
The Lot, which seems like it'll be a pain to search for in Google, will go into the old Backyard Beach Bar space, and it has a spiffy design from Hatsumi Kuzuu, whose resume includes many of the restaurants that opened in 2012, including Sissy’s and FT33. The space has a 180-seat dining room and bar with concrete and reclaimed wood, an open-air porch with communal picnic tables, and a Goodfriend-like beer garden surrounded by a vine-covered trellis. Like Goodfriend, The Lot will have 16 taps, rotated seasonally.
There is a Barcadia-esque space dedicated to bar games such as washers, corn hole and foosball, plus a children's play area with farm equipment and an herb garden designed by John Wolf and Elizabeth Dry of Promise of Peace Garden.
The "Haged" menu has rotisserie chicken and sandwiches such as ham and cheese on sourdough toast, cashew butter and honey on grain, and Texas Wagyu beef tongue with Swiss and red onion on rye. Snacks include fried cauliflower with buttermilk dip, pappadum with chutney, and Buffalo-style buffalo rolled in red hot sauce.
One big benefit of The Lot is its location off the Santa Fe Trail at 7530 East Grand Ave. Lunch service begins on Monday, March 25.