RIP Jim

Dallas radio personality and food festival founder Jim White dies

Jim White, always with wife Vicki Briley-White by his side.

Photo courtesy of Savor Dallas

Dallas radio personality Jim White, who co-founded the Savor Dallas food festival as well as Restaurant Week, died on June 4.

His wife Vicki Briley-White confirmed that White passed away while in hospice care, after the couple learned he had cancer just two months before.

"This has been a fast and shocking journey for us," she said. "We had barely comprehended that he was ill, much less that he is now gone from us."

White, who had a mellifluous voice that could melt ice, was a longtime radio personality, serving as a news anchor and talk show host for 1080 KRLD for a decade from 1995-2004.

He was probably Dallas' original foodie in his capacity as host of "The KRLD Restaurant Show with Jim White," a two-hour live talk-show featuring famous chefs, cookbook authors, winemakers, and restaurateurs from around the world, earning a James Beard Foundation nomination for "Best Radio Show on Food."

While at KRLD, he co-founded KRLD Restaurant Week, the annual fundraiser for the North Texas Food Bank.

From 1995-1997, he was morning and afternoon news anchor, and was honored by the Associated Press for "Best Newscast in Texas." His silver-tongued voice became a signature for KRLD, and earned him many requests for voice-over and emcee gigs.

He was ahead of his time in his enthusiasm for the food and beverage scene, producing and hosting videos featuring famous chefs, winemakers, and wine and food destinations, long before social media made such coverage common.

Inspired by food festivals they'd seen in other cities, and utilizing Briley-White's experience as chair of annual wine auction event Côtes du Coeur, the couple founded Savor Dallas in 2005, trailblazing the idea of a foodie festival in Dallas and drawing crowds of more than 4,000 people.

White recalled in 2013 that the event's launch fortuitously coincided with the debut of Stella Artois Beer in the Dallas-Fort Worth market; they served the beer ice cold on tap in a chalice, which attendees could take home for free.

The festival was eventually acquired by the Dallas Morning News in 2014, which let it flounder; its final year was 2018.

Always abreast of new media, White subsequently founded Wining & Dining with Jim White, a website and podcast enterprise where he interviewed top chefs and figures in the wine and spirits world.

White was still a student at the University of Texas at Arlington in 1968 when he was recruited to work at the then-new Dallas TV station Channel 39. At the same time, he worked weekends with radio legend Ron Chapman, nudging him into a successful broadcast career before he was able to graduate from college.

In addition to Dallas, he had radio experience at news and talk stations in Chicago and San Francisco, serving as reporter, weather anchor, and host; in satellite radio; and as an actor and voice-over actor in commercials, corporate spokesperson, and film.

"He will be greatly missed by me and others," Vicki said. "He was a kind, generous, highly principled, loving man who wanted everyone to succeed. He never held any hard feelings. A rare man indeed."

A memorial service will be held on June 17 at 1:30 pm at Wilshire Baptist Church Sanctuary, 4316 Abrams Rd. Dallas. A reception will follow in the Community Hall.

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Coming attraction

Dallas hospitality pros team up for new restaurant in Inwood Village

Rendering courtesy of

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Dallas restaurateur Bob Sambol, who brought Bob's Steak & Chop House to the city in the 1990s, is partnering with a prolific Dallas hospitality group to open an intimate new eatery called Charlie’s in Inwood Village.

Planned for spring or summer of 2027, Charlie's - a partnership between Sambol and Vandelay Companies - will take over the space at 5450 W. Lovers Ln. #225 formerly occupied by longtime Dallas favorite Adelmo's.

The restaurant will be small, with about 30 tables, and will serve dinner only. It will also take reservations the old-fashioned way: by landline phone in the restaurant.

Specifics about the menu, chef, and exact opening timeline will be announced closer to the restaurant's debut. But a rendering included with the press release shows a white brick exterior with black shutters, and text beneath the restaurant name that suggests the involvement of "steak," "chop," and "seafood."

Sambol describes Charlie's as "low-key" and "quietly sophisticated," with a "warm palette" and calls this a "very personal" project, which will be built in the spirit of small East Coast neighborhood dining rooms of the past, such as a place his father once owned called The Continental in New Jersey.

“After 30 years, I wanted to create something that feels humble and familiar with great hospitality, a beautiful room, people you know and a restaurant you want to return to again and again," Sambol says in the release. "Nothing overly complicated. Just a really special place for the neighborhood.”

Charlie's restaurant owners Vandalay Companies' Hunter Pond and Rick Dunlap flank Bob Sambol.Photo by Samantha Marie Photography

Sambol says he's had a longtime friendship with the Vandelay Companies' Hunter Pond and Rick Dunlap, whose restaurants include Hudson House, Anchor Sushi, Drake’s, and a variety of other brands. He says he’s watched the restaurant development investors grow up and make a name for themselves in Dallas hospitality.

“I’ve known Hunter and Rick since they were in grade school, and seeing what they have built is truly remarkable. It’s a surreal moment to partner with them on such a personal project” Sambol says.

Pond calls the partnership with Sambol a "fun and unique project ... that no one in Dallas has done in quite some time."

Charlie’s will be "deliberately different" from many of the big city's large-scale "highly produced" restaurants, the owners say, adding that it "will embrace an understated, old-school elegance."

“Charlie’s isn’t about trying to make the biggest restaurant or the loudest statement. It’s about creating a timeless one," Pond says. "That restraint is what makes the project so exciting to us.”

As for Charlie's predecessor at the coveted Inwood Village address, Adelmo's — known for its Italian food "with accents" of French and Mediterranean — occupied the space for 10 years before closing in December 2025 and reopening this year in the Preston Valley Shopping Center, at the southwest corner of Preston Road.

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