Greenville Avenue News
Uptown tycoons head to Greenville Avenue for new beer and games joint
The food-and-beverage team behind Social House has found new turf to plow, in a much-prized location on Greenville Avenue with square footage to spare.
Shawn Rao and Jonathan Serrano took possession of the former Shell station at the corner of Greenville and Belmont avenues and will open a capacious new concept there with so much food, beverage, and games that a millennial need never leave.
They're not ready to name the concept yet; for now, the working title is Celtic Garden.
Rao says that he and Serrano have big plans for this newest of their concepts.
"It will have a 9,000-square-foot patio, with dishes focused on popular foods from all the regions in America," he says. "The food will be made from scratch."
They're taking all the lessons they've learned from their Social House concept, which can be boiled down to "good food, plenty of beer, and loads of games." To that end, the new concept will be well endowed with beer: "We'll have 35 taps, including 15 taps for specialty beer," he says.
They have scratched out a name for themselves with their diligent caretaking of Social House. They opened the first Social House in the West Village in 2009, then a branch in Addison in 2011. They closed West Village but reopened in Uptown in 2013, this time in a more appropriate location, the former Arcodoro Pomodoro space. There, they created a backyard game setup that's been a big hit.
They'll re-create that on Greenville Avenue, Rao says.
"We'll have all sorts of games, like ping pong, foosball, bubble soccer, air hockey, life-size Jenga, Connect 4, cornhole, and a few more," he says. "Also, we will have huge live oaks transplanted on the patio."
Situated across from the old Whole Foods (now a Walmart), the Shell station closed earlier in 2015. Securing that location, on an expansive corner lot, was a major coup. There's a construction team already onsite, and their timetable for opening is late fall.
And they're already working on another location. "We have the same concept going into Fort Worth next year as well," Rao says. "Yes, we are growing fast."
