UPDATE 9-20-2021: Firebird Fowl opens on September 20.

-----------

An address in Uptown Dallas with good times in its bones has landed a new tenant: Called Firebird Fowl, it's a restaurant with what is truly a unique angle, set to open at 2816 Fairmount St. this summer.

This location was most recently Dos Jefes, but party people from the '90s and '00s might recognize it as the former home to Nick & Sam's Grill and once upon a time, Martini Ranch.

Firebird Fowl is a highly creative concept that takes the most popular food group right now — chicken, of course — and does it one better.

Owners David Taylor and Timothy Summers were originally plotting a Nashville hot chicken place, but after seeing that trend blow up in Dallas, they hit pause.

"It started because we love Nashville hot chicken — we used to travel to Nashville all the time and would wait in lines for hours just to get it," Taylor says. "I thought we'd be the first to do a place here, but out of nowhere, the hot chicken thing just exploded."

"We said, 'That's it, we're stopping,' but we used the opportunity to come up with something more creative," he says. "We had talked over the years about doing a couple concepts and they all entailed birds like chicken and turkey, and we said, 'Why don't we do a place where we combine them all?'"

Firebird Fowl goes for birds of all kinds: duck, chicken, turkey, emu, quail, and even ostrich, with some creative sounding dishes.

Their menu is still in progress but for example, the chicken category alone has more than half a dozen items, from the Nashville hot chicken sandwich to "giant wings" to spatchcock chicken to a chicken wrap.

There are duck tacos. Turkey Cobb salad. Ostrich burgers. And a Texas emu cheesesteak sandwich.

Developing the menu gave them a newfound appreciation for different kinds of fowl.

"Emu is like steak, and we'll be sourcing it from a couple of ranches, so it's almost farm to table," Taylor says. "We're so excited about this menu, it's as healthy as can be, but with a Southern flair."

Taylor is also the creator of DizziBrands, a food truck-restaurant specializing in alcohol-infused desserts such as ice cream, sorbets, cupcakes, frozen pops, brownies, dummies, and gourmet gelatin shots. DizziBrands is currently on hold, due to changes in the liquor laws by the TABC, but they'll soon be able to serve those products at Firebird Fowl.

"The cool thing about this restaurant is that our entire dessert menu will be Dizzibrands recipes including our signature Margarita Key Lime Pie, Cinnamon Whiskey Apple Pie, and Spiced Rum Cheesecake," Taylor says.

Getting the location at Fairmount was a personal score of sorts. Tim Summers says he fondly remembers Martini Ranch as a one-of-a-kind spot, known for serving extremely stiff drinks and for their popular Monday Night martini specials.

"We're going to do an homage," Summers says. "They used to have their 'Martini Mondays,' so for our first month, we'll do some flashbacks with discounted martinis, because of the love we had for Martini Ranch."