Food Hall News

UNT in Denton debuts innovative food hall with 7 new restaurants on campus

UNT's dining program is always on the cutting edge.

Photo courtesy of UNT

The University of North Texas has always been a trailblazer when it comes to campus cuisine, and continues that streak for the 2021 fall semester with the opening of a new dining hall inspired by that most trendiest of trends: the food hall.

Called Eagle Landing, it draws its inspiration from Legacy Hall in Plano, featuring seven independent restaurant concepts under one roof serving a variety of fresh, made-from-scratch food and recipes crafted by UNT’s in-house culinary team.

Offerings range from Latin fusion street tacos on house-made tortillas to a plant-based vegan stand to a bakery with fresh-baked cookies, ice cream, and pastries all made on campus.

UNT President Neal Smatresk calls the new hall a "crown jewel" that is only the latest example of the university's trademark innovation.

"Eagle Landing is a crown jewel that exemplifies the innovative spirit of our university," Smatresk says. "It creates a community dining experience where our Mean Green Family breaks bread together and celebrates college life. Fresh, locally sourced and inventive are hallmarks of the UNT Dining Services experience."

Food

The hall comprises seven restaurants under one roof:

Avenue A

Menu: Traditional favorites like fried chicken, mac & cheese, smoked barbecue and breakfast all day
Centerpiece: Southern Pride brand smoker
Good to know: Can serve 960 portions of mac & cheese and 1,700 portions of fried chicken per day. Features fresh-baked biscuits made from Clark Bakery scratch dough. The serving line linear foot measurement at Avenue A is greater than all of the serving lines at Kerr Dining Hall combined.

Bamboo Basil

Menu: Asian-inspired stir-fried rice and noodle dishes
Centerpiece: Traditional wok range that can reach temperatures of 1600°F
Good to know: Features Korean and Cantonese (Southern Chinese) cuisine. Can serve more than 600 portions of rice per hour.

Cibo Fresco

Menu: Pizza and chef’s pasta toss
Centerpiece: Rotoflex brand pizza oven featuring four rotating stone decks
Good to know: Can serve 200 pizzas (3,200 slices) per hour. Features fresh basil grown at Mean Green Acres, UNT’s hydroponic garden located on campus.

Clark Bakery at Eagle Landing

Menu: Fresh pastries, cookies, warm desserts, Scrappy’s ice cream cones and custom milkshakes
Centerpiece: Pastry case with an array of Clark Bakery desserts and pastries
Good to know: All items – including Scrappy’s Ice Cream – are made on campus at Clark Bakery, UNT’s scratch bakery led by professionally trained, certified bakers and pastry chefs. Cookie dough made at the central bakery is transferred to Eagle Landing, where guests can see cookies being baked fresh right behind the counter.

La Mesa

Menu: Latin fusion street tacos, nachos, fresh toppings and house-made tortillas
Centerpiece: Spiral conveyor tortilla press and oven
Good to know: Can serve up to 900 6-inch tortillas per hour made from 100% plant-based (vegan) Clark Bakery scratch dough

Leaf

Menu: Contemporary vegetarian concept, featuring fresh veggies, salads and composed salads, four daily soups and plenty of 100% plant-based (vegan) options
Centerpiece: More than 20-foot long salad bar
Good to know: Features fresh leafy greens and herbs grown at Mean Green Acres, UNT’s non-GMO hydroponic garden located on campus. Also features fresh produce grown by regional farms, composed salads, build-your-own pho bar and vegan hot entrées. Croutons and salad dressings are made from scratch.

Wood Grill

Menu: House-formed burgers, plant-based burgers and grilled chicken sandwiches served on buns baked fresh at Clark Bakery, plus shoestring fries and house chips
Centerpiece: Argentinian gaucho grill with hardwood lump charcoal and real wood
Good to know: Can grill up to 280 in-house blended burgers per hour

To maximize freshness and food safety measures, fresh produce and meats are stored and prepared in separate, designated cold spaces – unlike in a traditional kitchen where items may be comingled throughout the delivery, storage and preparation processes, and prepared at ambient temperatures.

Commissary-style production spaces will allow Dining Services to distribute items produced at Eagle Landing to other campus dining venues in the future, including the retail market located within the Eagle Landing building. Commercial blast chillers will cool food from 145°F to frozen in about 30 minutes.

Design

Eagle Landing represents UNT's first standalone dining hall as well as the largest dining hall on campus with the capacity to seat 700 people. Seating areas provide options for dining, socializing, and studying, including a 24-foot long community table, a quiet zone, seating overlooking the first floor, and a table shaped like the UNT diving eagle symbol.

Design of the 25,990-square-foot building provides greater culinary transparency and guest customization of menu items by showing more preparation in front of the guests. Houston-based Kirksey Architecture served as the architect and Rogers-O'Brien as the general contractor on the project.

Peter Balabuch, director of UNT Dining Services, says in a statement that they wanted to accommodate all tastes and preferences.

"Eagle Landing demonstrates our commitment to doing food service the right way: preparing the highest quality food, utilizing whole ingredients and cooking with sustainable methods," Balabuch says. "Our guests deserve no less, and whether you are a student, faculty, staff or a visitor to our campus, we want you to have the best dining experience possible."

The design reinforces UNT's commitment to sustainability by using 30 percent less water and 10 percent less energy than a standard code-compliant building. Strict procedures during construction helped minimize landfill waste and avoid pollution of local storm sewers and waterways. The project prioritized local materials with high recycled content, fully disclosed environmental and human health impacts and less toxic chemicals.

Eagle Landing is open seven days a week during fall and spring semesters, serving up to 6,000 guests each day. It follows an all-you-can-eat service style, accessible with a single meal plan swipe or $8.45 plus tax at the door without a meal plan.

UNT Dining Services is the largest self-supported food service department in North Texas. With 20+ retail food shops, five dining halls, upscale dining restaurant, in-house bakery and full-service catering department, it serves nearly 5 million meals annually.

It's also the largest employer on campus, providing resume-building job opportunities to nearly 1,100 student employees.

The university is recognized as a leader in vegan dining on college campuses, thanks to the success of Mean Greens Café, the nation's first all-vegan collegiate dining hall. It also is a member of the Menus of Change University Research Collaborative. UNT was named No. 2 in the nation as a college with the best food by Delish.com and also is the recipient of the prestigious Loyal E. Horton Award.

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Comings and Goings

It's a big week for restaurant openings and closings in Dallas

Alara

Deconstructed baklava at Alara.

The headline says it best: It's a big week for restaurant openings and closings in Dallas. Sometimes forces come together to make a week like this busy, whether it's the alignment of the stars or just a Dallas code compliance inspector who finally decides to give a thumbs up.

But along with the good news of openings comes the not-so-good news of closings. Let's do good news first with openings, followed by closings.

OPENINGS

Alara, a Mediterranean restaurant from Turkish-born chef Onur Akan, has opened in Dallas' Design District at 1628 Oak Lawn Ave. #120, in the former Pakpao Thai space. Akan, who previously worked as a chef at Nonna and had his own catering company, is calling it "modern Mediterranean," with twists such as deconstructed baklava and the so-called Caesar salad, whose gem lettuce, fried anchovies, and green goddess dressing make it seem like not a Caesar at all. During lunch, Alara will feature a casual European cafe-style menu with mezze, doner kebab, sandwiches, and salads. Dinner service expands into a larger menu with nightly specials.

Bojangles, the Carolina chicken chain, opened a location in Plano at 3840 SH-121, in a newly-constructed building west of Kroger Marketplace at the corner of Coit Road. Bojangles specializes in fried chicken, biscuits, and Southern sides such as dirty rice, mac & cheese, and Cajun pinto beans. They made their Dallas-area debut in 2023 with the usual fanfare that first surrounds a chain, followed by the usual fading fanfare that surrounds a chain after it has opened multiple locations. In this case, Plano marks the company’s ninth location in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Maman, the New York café chain making a big expansion in Dallas, opens its new location at Hillside Village, the centrally situated center at Mockingbird Lane and Abrams Road, on April 23 in the former Palmer's Hot Chicken space, with pastries, sandwiches, coffee, and exclusive Texas menu items. Opening day will feature an 8 am ribbon cutting with complimentary cookies for the first 100 customers who make a purchase. They made their Texas debut in November 2025 when they opened a location in the Plaza at Preston Center. There are also plans for locations in Frisco, Casa Linda, and the Design District.

PopUp Bagels, a buzzy bagel concept from the Northeast, will make its Texas debut on April 24, opening its first location in Dallas at Inwood Village, in the former I Heart Yogurt shop next to the Inwood Theatre at 5450 W Lovers Ln. #143. PopUp started as a backyard project during the pandemic. Their menu is limited — no sandwiches— and their bagels are sold whole only, not sliced, leading to their nickname "rip and dip," in which customers rip the bagels in half and dip them into spreads. (Their texture is softer and lighter than the traditional New York dense bagel, making them easier to "rip.") On opening day only, they'll serve a Lemon Pepper Schmear that's a collaboration with Wingstop.

Portillo's, the Chicago-based street food chain, opened a location in Frisco at 16499 FM Rd. #423 on April 21, with Chicago-style hot dogs, Italian beef sandwiches, crinkle-cut fries, salads, shakes, and chocolate cake. Hot dogs come in regular, chili cheese, Polish sausage, and Maxwell Street Polish sausage with mustard and grilled onions. The location features Portillo's "restaurant of the future" design, comprising a smaller, more efficient footprint. It is the 11th location of Portillo's in Dallas-Fort Worth and first in Frisco; the first opened at the Grandscape development in The Colony in January 2023.

CLOSINGS

Super Duper Cookie Co., a social enterprise that employs people with disabilities, is closing its storefront in May. The shop, which opened in 2024 in the former Baldo's Ice Cream space across from SMU at 6401 Hillcrest Rd., will be closing on May 1, according to a post on Instagram. Company founder Benjamin Crosland told the DMN that they're closing because they couldn't afford to stay in business. "We are sad to go but we know that we have made an impact in our community," their post said. "We will be here until May 1, so come and say goodbye and get a cookie and dance under the disco ball one last time."

Bon bons by Kate Weiser Chocolate. Photo courtesy of Kate Weiser Chocolate

Dozo Omakase. Omakase sushi restaurant at Trinity Groves closed on April 14, after a little more than a year. The sushi spot opened in early 2025 with an embrace of the then-trendy multi-course omakase style of dining, in small or large versions with basically four options: 7 or 15 courses, plus hand rolls and a nigiri-handroll combination, with prices ranging from $28 to $120. They had a cool happy hour with a new menu nearly every month, but it wasn't enough. In their closure announcement, they said it was a difficult decision but invited fans to visit their sister restaurant Dozo Sushi in Richardson.

Kate Weiser Chocolate, Dallas' renowned chocolatier famous for its colorful and artistic chocolates, is closing down. That includes all four locations: its flagship at Trinity Groves as well as NorthPark Center, Fort Worth, and Southlake, as well as online sales. Founder Kate Weiser, a pastry chef who founded her chocolate company in 2014 as part of the "incubator" program at Trinity Groves, told the DMN that Trinity Groves' investors owned 60 percent of the company, and that they hadn't been profitable in four years. She's arranged for her signature "Carl the Snowman" hot chocolate kit to have one final Christmas season with Central Market for the 2026 holiday.

Stirr, the brunchy restaurant from Dallas-based Milkshake Concepts, has closed its final location in Addison. According to a post from the owners, they decided not to renew their lease; April 19 was their last day of service. Stirr made its debut in Deep Ellum in 2016, serving chef-driven dishes and cocktails. A second location opened in Fort Worth in 2019, then closed in 2021. Milkshake seems to be in a time of transition. In 2025, they closed Citizen, their lounge on Swiss Avenue and recently replaced it with a dance-music venue called Ctrl Room. They also own the small Mexican chain Vidorra, Serious Pizza, and The Finch, an American grill with locations in Dallas, Grand Prairie, and Nashville.
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Stephanie Allmon Merry contributed to this story.

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