Opening News

The Star in Frisco reboots with 5 new restaurants and bars

Chimichurri cheeseburger at Sidecar Social in Addison

Worry not, there will be burgers. There are always burgers.

Photo courtesy of Visit Addison

The Star District — the entertainment district at the Dallas Cowboys World Headquarters and practice facility at The Star in Frisco — is debuting five new restaurants and bars that include Italian, seafood, Indian, and cocktails, opening in 2022.

The complex has not had an easy time since it unveiled its first dozen restaurants in 2016, and the pandemic has not helped.

This newest batch includes an Italian restaurant from the Lombardi family and an outdoor venue, plus new concepts and cocktail lounges from local restaurateurs.

Lombardi Cucina Italiana - 6655 Winning Drive #605
Well here's some florid press release wordage: "The atmosphere at Lombardi Cucina Italiana will remind you of an open-air villa in Italy surrounded by olive trees, Italian marble, and Venetian chandeliers."

The menu will be "authentic Italian cuisine with a modern touch," led by culinary director Alfio Longo and chef Ty Thaxton, with pastas be produced daily in an open style ‘pasta laboratorio’ — how much you wanna bet that translates into "pasta laboratory"? — plus nonpasta categories such as fish, meat, and produce.

The Glen & Monarch Stag - 6655 Winning Drive, #600
Derek and Sheree Simms of Simms Hospitality Group, which owns J. Theodore and Rare Books Bar, are debuting not one but two new concepts: a restaurant called The Glen and an adjacent scotch bar called the Monarch Stag.

The inspiration is pretty arcane: They say that it's from The Monarch of the Glen, a British painting originally commissioned in 1851 for the Palace of Westminster.

The Glen will feature "hand-pressed" craft cocktails, wine, scotch, and seafood. It will also offer "experiential layers," including aerial performing artists and entertainers. Wow-wee.

Monarch Stag will have food, live music, cigar lounge, and scotch whisky and bourbon selections from around the world.

Sidecar Social - 6770 Winning Drive
Sidecar Social is the fun outdoor concept from On Deck Concepts, founded by Brent Tipps, founder of BoomerJack’s sports bar. The first Sidecar Social debuted in Addison in August 2019. This will be the second location.

Set to open in fall 2022, it'll be a massive 15,000-square-foot space featuring craft cocktails and bites, games, karaoke, live music, TVs, and an all-season patio.

Snowbird Cocktail Lounge & Kitchen - 6765 Winning Drive, #800
Bar and hospitality experts David Nguyen and Sobe Ahmed are partnering to debut a new concept, Snowbird Cocktail Lounge and Kitchen.

They describe it as an upscale Art Deco-inspired lounge with a "tantalizing array of mixology cocktails," small bites, and music.

It is surely not named for the flock of retirees who escape the cold in the Northeast every winter and head for Florida.

Roti Grill - 3675 Gaylord Parkway, #1105
Fresh Indian food restaurant is relocating from its original location in The Star District on Winning Drive and will reopen in early 2022 on Gaylord Parkway with an updated menu and enhanced interior including a new bar, and a large storefront patio for outdoor dining.

openings

Ice Cream News

Crispy Cones opens in Plano with cool twist on regular ice cream cone

Crispy Cones

An ice cream shop chain that appeared on Shark Tank has opened a location in Plano: Called Crispy Cones, it's an innovative concept that places as much attention on the cone as it does the ice cream, and has opened a shop in Plano, in a new center at 9613 Coit Rd. #108.

Crispy Cones features what is called a "chimney cone" — a hollow, sweet pastry with roots in Eastern European countries like Hungary and the Czech Republic. It's a little like a croissant, with a texture that's crisp on the outside but soft and fluffy inside — versus the sugar or waffle cone you get at a typical ice cream stand.

The process to make the cone involves wrapping the dough around a rod, then baking it over a heating element until it turns golden brown. It gets dusted with cinnamon and sugar, while the inside gets lined with a spread such as Nutella, peanut butter, cookie butter, and strawberry jam which forms a layer between cone and ice cream.

From there, you choose Crispy Cones' soft-serve ice cream in flavors such as vanilla, chocolate, swirl, or seasonal flavors like pistachio or cookie dough. You can also get toppings like chopped up Heath bars or Oreo cookies, and sauce including Nutella, caramel, cookie butter, or raspberry. A cone is $5.39.

In addition to cones on-site, they sell ice cream and cones to go, so you can make-your-own at home.

Crispy Cones was founded in 2018 by Jeremy Carlson, who encountered the chimney cake-style cones during a mission trip to the Czech Republic. Enamored, he began selling them from a road-side tent in Utah, before opening brick-and-mortar ice cream shops.

With an eye on going nationwide, he and his wife Kaitlyn pitched their concept on the TV show Shark Tank, where they received a stake from investor Barbara Corcoran. The company is growing quickly: There are currently 23 stores open in the U.S. including Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Florida, and Tennessee, with more on the way. The first DFW-area Crispy Cones debuted in North Richland Hills in 2025.

Ushering Crispy Cones into Plano are husband-and-wife Greg and Lisa Crow, who've had other businesses in the past but wanted to bring something to the community. Lisa says they've already received a warm welcome, and are planning to open two more locations, one in Celina and another in Frisco.

ice cream desserts openings