Books and Food

You can drink wine at cool new-concept restaurant-bookstore in Plano

You can eat and read books.

Photo by BN

The new Barnes & Noble with the unique in-house restaurant that's opening at Legacy West in Plano has a date: November 10. This is a new-concept store combining a bookstore with a full-service restaurant called the Barnes & Noble Kitchen, which features shareable dishes plus wine and craft beer. The store is one of the new smaller-format prototypes being tested by the company.

"Legacy West is an innovative new development that makes it an ideal location for one of our new concept stores," says Barnes & Noble's CEO Demos Parneros in a release. "This store is part of our ongoing effort to test new concept stores. We are still learning from all of the new stores that we have opened across the country, and we are excited about the knowledge we have gained in these markets."

The Barnes & Noble Kitchen menu reflects the seasonality of local ingredients. Dishes include herb-rubbed chicken, pan-roasted salmon, a brisket hickory burger, hummus, and a cheeseplate. Chef Robbie Nowlin, who is leading the restaurant team, was previously at Boudro's Texas Bistro and Zinc Bistro & Wine Bar in San Antonio.

The Kitchen at Barnes & Noble Legacy West features indoor and outdoor seating, full-table service, plus the usual informal spots for coffee or glass of wine. Indoors seating includes a community worktable with easily accessible outlets. You can also sit at the bar or at a table with table service. The patio has large accordion doors, a large water fountain, and an outdoor bar.

Other cutting-edge features at the store include mobile devices that provide detailed information on all products, and self-serve kiosks throughout the store where customers can discover books and other products and locate them in the store through an interactive store mapping tool. Customers can also order and ship directly to their home.

Community events will include book fairs for local schools, signings, and storytimes, wine and food tastings, and intimate music events.

The store is in Suite G170 on 7700 Windrose Ave.

books openings

Wings News

New chicken wing joint sells 'em by the pound in Dallas' Deep Ellum

Wings By the Pound

A no-nonsense wing spot has debuted in Dallas' Deep Ellum: Called Wings By the Pound, it sells exactly that, at a shop at 2707 Main St., in the former home of the Slutty Vegan burger joint, which closed in 2024.

Wings by the Pound states proudly that it "isn't a combo joint" but is instead "a counter built on one idea — call your weight, watch it hit the scale, and take it off the scale." Then presumably you take it home, you eat it, end of story.

It presents itself as an alternative to typical wing spots which sell wings by the number. Numbers are complicated.

"We sell you weight. Pick wings or tenders, call your poundage from a half-pound to four, and we weigh it up in front of you," they say.

From there it's the standard wing-joint set of choices: wings or tenders, level of heat, sauces, and sides. "No combos, no guessing," they brag, although is there a lot of guessing with wings?

Here's some very specific numbers:

One pound of wings, which they approximate at 12 pieces, is $15.05. Two pounds, or 24 pieces, is $27.11.
One pound of tenders, which they approximate at 8 pieces, is $17.02. Two pounds, or 16 pieces, is $25.06.

They also sell french fries — crinkle cut — in choice of plain, cheese sauce, or "pound sauce" for $8 to $15. Pound sauce is their version of the prototypical secret sauce, which generally boils down to Russian-ish dressing, i.e., mayonnaise and ketchup with various add-ins, spicy and otherwise; the version at Wings By the Pound incorporates hot sauce.

There are wet sauces, including Thai, chipotle, hot honey, and garlic Parm; dry rubs, including suya (peanut) and jalapeño-lemon; and five dips: cheese sauce, ranch, bleu cheese, honey mustard, and pound sauce.

Some might recall that there was a Wings By the Pound concept that first debuted in 2020 at Trinity Groves, the restaurant incubator in West Dallas, but that closed in 2022.

This Wings By the Pound is a new concept from ArkDal Hospitality Group, headed by Cary Thompson, Royce Colley, and Mo Wells, which also operates Velour Restaurant in Victory Park.

The location in Deep Ellum has no seating on premise and functions as a take-out spot only. A spokesperson said that the location opened in mid-June.

chicken deep ellum openings