Shop and Eat

Nordstrom stores around Dallas add casual sophisticated restaurant

Nordstrom store Domain Northside first look Bazille restaurant 2016

Nordstrom has always done a good job with in-store eateries.

Photo courtesy of Nordstrom

A new restaurant is opening at the Stonebriar Centre in Frisco, inside the Nordstrom department store. Called Bazille, it's a full-service restaurant with salads, entrees, dessert, and a full bar with a wine list and cocktails.

Pronounced bah-Zeel, Bazille is named for French impressionist Jean Frederic Bazille. According to a spokesperson, it's one of the Nordstrom's newer concepts.

"We've offered food options in our stores for more than 30 years as a way to enhance customers' shopping experience, and we are updating Bistro N to Bazille in order to provide one of our newer restaurant concepts to our customers," she says. "We hope to provide a place where customers can relax while enjoying a great meal."

The menu includes appetizers, salads, sandwiches, brick oven pizzas, entrees, and house-made desserts. Items include chicken tacos, fried calamari, lobster macaroni and cheese, Korean barbecue short ribs, and chicken sausage and burrata. Signature dishes include the crab stack and white chocolate bread pudding.

Diners like that they bring warm baguettes with butter, and the iced tea is flavored peach. Bazille also has a small breakfast menu beginning at 10 am and served all day.

The Zodiac Room at Neiman Marcus sets the standard for department-store restaurants, but Nordstrom has always done an excellent job at its in-store eateries. For years, the NorthPark store had a worthy offering in Bistro N, located on the third floor with a private entrance off Park Lane. Nordstrom replaced it in 2015 with the first area branch of Bazille. There's also a Bazille at the Nordstrom in the Galleria Houston mall.

Bazille is one of 16 restaurant concepts ranging from cafes to gelato stands, such as Blue Stove, Café Bistro, Raam, Ruscello, and The Grill. Other Dallas store locations include the Galleria Nordstrom, which has an ebar and a more casual Marketplace Cafe.

Stonebriar had an "ebar" only; this represents an entirely new dining option. Bazille will be located on the second floor of the store, and it opens October 25.

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Soul Food News

Dallas celebs are flocking to Soul Shack, new restaurant in Cedar Hill

Soul Shack

Fried chicken, mac & cheese, collards at Soul Shack.

Dallas has a new upscale soul food restaurant that originally hails from Chicago: Called Soul Shack, it’s in the former Turkey Leg King space at 305 W. FM 1382 #502, in the Hillside Village shopping center in Cedar Hill where it opened in late January.

Soul Shack was founded by owner Erik “Rico” Nance, an entrepreneur and veteran restaurateur, and is led by his business partners Theous Griffin and Ronald Edwards III, who serves as general manager. The original was a fast-casual concept in Chicago called Soul Shack Express, which is still open.

The Dallas location is a more ambitious effort, with a full-service restaurant, full bar, and swanky nightlife atmosphere. Nance had previously opened Mikkey's Retro Grill, a hip-hop themed burger restaurant, in Cedar Hill, which closed in late 2024.

"I felt like the city needed a cocktail lounge," he says.

The space boasts a 1920's jazz club atmosphere, with marble floors, circular black booths, chandeliers, crystal bead curtains, and tables topped with a newsprint design. There's a "Soul Shack" sign in white neon, and an Insta-friendly wall with flowers and photo collage of iconic Black artists and performers like Eddie Murphy and Diahann Carroll. They also host live music and DJs at night.

The menu is mostly Southern but with fusion twists: soul rolls (fried egg rolls) filled with jerk chicken, which is their signature dish; plus gumbo, collard greens, sweet potatoes, mac & cheese, lamb chops with a parmesan crust, oxtails, and beef short ribs in gravy.

Tranelle and Ron Edwards with Shaq O'Neal Shaq O'Neal (right) drops into Soul Shack.Soul Shack

"Soul Shack has been an offspring of the things that we've learned from our other restaurants," Nance says. "We're still in soft opening mode, but we've already taken off. We'll have a beautiful nightlife and older crowd."

They've quickly earned notice from celebrities including TikTok phenomenon Keith Lee, who touted them with a review in their first week open (giving it a high rating of 8 out of 10 on his scale); and more recently celebrity Shaquille "Shaq" O'Neal, who dropped in for a surprise visit, posing for a photo with Edwards and his wife, Tranelle.

"We had no idea, he just came in, made a reservation and said he'd heard the food was amazing," Nance says. "When he came in the door, we said, 'We're turning this into Soul Shaq.' We accommodated everything he wanted. I love that man and what he stands for, his philanthropy."

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