Breakfast News

Fresh bountiful breakfasts are the thing at this new cafe coming to North Dallas

They have many wonderful kinds of pancakes.

Courtesy of Honey Berry

A promising new purveyor of pancakes and other primo breakfast fare is coming to Dallas: Called Honey Berry Pancakes and Cafe, it's a concept based in the Chicago area making its Texas debut with a location at 4520 Frankford Rd. #100, in North Dallas, in what was previously Another Broken Egg Cafe, where it will open in late summer.

Honey Berry was founded outside Chicago in 2019 and currently has seven locations, with five in the Chicago area and two in Milwaukee.

They're open for breakfast and lunch and are known for generous portions, fresh ingredients, and for toeing the line on quality, making everything in-house, such as cutting French fries from scratch.

Their signature is their Honey Berry Pancakes with berry-mascarpone filling, but they have a dozen other decadent pancake varieties including:

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes with cream cheese frosting and cinnamon-sugar glaze
Chocolate Chip Banana, with white and dark chocolate chips and sliced fresh bananas
Pumpkin Pancakes with candied pecans and cream cheese icing
Banana Coconut Cream Pie, with bananas, cream filling, coconut, graham-cracker cookies, and caramel
Creamy Nutella, filled with Nutella cream and topped with coconut

Omelets are bountiful and creative, such as the Southwest with jalapenos, avocado, onion, mushrooms, chorizo sausage, and chihuahua cheese on a bed of flour tortillas.

They also have a section of "skillets" in options such as the Carnivore with ham, sausage, turkey sausage, chicken sausage, & bacon; and the Veggie with mushroom, asparagus, spinach, onion, tomato, & broccoli.

In fact, there's an entire vegan section with Vegan Breakfast Hash featuring a Beyond Burger patty, hash browns, spinach, mushrooms, onion, tomato, & avocado; and a Vegan Breakfast Sandwich featuring marinated tofu, avocado, tomato, and dipping sauce on a vegan bun. That kind of commitment at breakfast is rare.

Waffles, crepes, and French toast can be ordered in an equally wide variety of options. French toast, for example, comes in flavors such as Rumchata, S'Mores Toast, Chocolate Brioche, Red Velvet, and an especially tempting "Cereal Killer," featuring French toast with a fun "crust" made from multi-colored cereal krispies.

There's biscuits & gravy, corned beef & hash, and a quintet of benedicts, and we haven't even gotten to lunch yet.

The lunch menu includes bowls, wraps, salads, and sandwiches, highlighted by their signature Monte Cristo, made in the classic method with with ham & turkey, Swiss & American cheese, battered and fried, then served with raspberry preserves.

There's chicken salad, a club sandwich, Cobb salad, and a Buffalo chicken wrap.

Their restaurants also feature a full bar, meaning bloody Marys made with vodka, bellinis, Irish coffee, and a Cinnamon Roll cocktail with RumChata Cinnamon Cream liqueur and Kahlua, served together over ice.

Honey Berry is part of the We Are Hospitality Group, which has opened a number of concepts such as Bulldog Ale House, Burnt Pizza Co, and Goat & Vine.

Founder Matt Ahmeti says that they're big fans of Dallas, and have more openings in the works.

"Our director of operations was raised in Dallas — he just got married and wanted to move back," Ahmeti says. "We said, 'Let's open a Honey Berry Cafe.' We hope to open more around the area, including Plano and Fort Worth."

"Texas is a beautiful state, and with so many people moving to Dallas, we wanted to be part of that," he says.

trends

Diner News

Home-cooking classic Chubby's closes location in southwest Dallas

Chubby's

Biscuits and gravy at Chubby's

A beloved diner near Duncanville in southwest Dallas has closed: Chubby's, famous for its home-cooking cuisine and splendiferous breakfasts, has closed its location at 7474 S. Cockrell Hill Rd., near I-20 and 67, after 18 years.

In what will be a relief for Chubby's many fans, the original location, at 11331 E. Northwest Hwy., is still open. A manager at the original location confirmed that the Cockrell Hill location had closed, while a spokesperson for the property said the building was up for sale because the owner was "ready to retire."

The location has been on the market since June, but they finally shuttered the restaurant on October 31. It had been at that address since 2008, taking over a space that was formerly Owens Family Restaurant, and originally a Bob Evans Restaurant.

Chubby's was founded by brothers and Greek immigrants John and George Touris, who opened the first location in 1987. Over the years, they opened more locations, winning over fans with their pancakes, omelets, chicken-fried steak, burgers, sandwiches, salads, and more, as well as a few Italian and Greek dishes.

If you know restaurants, you know that Greek restaurateurs usually adhere to a high standard of quality. Stellar signatures, shown in their most tempting light on Instagram, include biscuits & gravy, chicken-fried steak, Greek baked chicken with potato wedges, banana pancakes topped with banana slices and whipped cream, Greek salad, and masterful desserts including multi-layer cakes and baked pies in varieties such as cherry, coconut cream, and the rare chocolate meringue.

As their website explains, John Touris was 16 when he, his brother, and mother left Greece in 1978 and emigrated to Buffalo, New York, where John learned the ropes from his uncle, a restaurant veteran who worked at Towne Restaurant, which helped many Greek immigrants find their way in the U.S.

John moved to Dallas and in 1982 opened his first restaurant, Dough Boys, which eventually evolved into Chubby’s when it moved to its location on Northwest Highway. Together with his brother George, John built Chubby’s into a community cornerstone, expanding to four locations across Plano and Lancaster, which both closed, and this location near Duncanville, which has now closed as well.

Chubby’s is treasured by old-timers as one of a shrinking pool of diner-type places, like Mama's Daughters' Diner, Original Market Diner, Metro Diner, and Norma's Cafe, that offers unpretentious, well-prepared food at a relatively low price.

breakfast closings greek cuisine