Homey restaurant with rock-star cred opens in Dallas' Casa Linda Plaza

There's an exciting restaurant with rock star credentials coming to a venerable East Dallas center: Called Be Home Soon, it's a new concept opening at Casa Linda Plaza, where it will serve a highly personal twist on home cooking.

The restaurant is from Madison King, a onetime Dallas musician-turned-chef who envisions a warm, comfortable restaurant with a full bar and menu she describes as "home cooking, no matter where you're from." It'll open in late 2024.

UPDATE 11-19-2024: Be Home Soon is now open.
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Be Home Soon continues King's culinary journey from former sous chef at Frank Underground to founding her own cottage business Munchbox, a fun snacks board concept that will operate as a ghost kitchen out of the restaurant.

"I originally planned to open a bar and restaurant with Jess Barr, who co-owned Twilite Lounge, but he passed away last December," she says. "My partner Russell Kirk and I decided to move forward without him and do this together. Russell was Jess' best friend and had been doing back of the house at Twilite for 10 years, and we felt like this was what Jess would want."

For the menu, she first went down the gourmet path before circling back to what she loved best.

"It's very much home cooking, meaning how I cook at home," she says. "I was initially thinking shared plates with fancy chef touches before I realized that I just wanted to do home cooking."

They'll be open for lunch and dinner with a menu that includes fun appetizers, soups, salads, and sandwiches for lunch, then roll out blue plate specials for dinner — your basic "meat and three style," which they'll change every week, with a modern, global spin on home cooking.

"We'll incorporate flavors from all over the world, like maybe you're getting curry today or maybe pot roast," she says.

Their location is the former Dugg Burger space at 9540 Garland Rd. #407, which it took them more than a year to nail down.

"It's our dream space," King says. "It's a center beloved by the neighborhood, the parking lot is infinite, and after being in Deep Ellum and downtown my whole career, I'm stoked to have a place that I can ride to on my bicycle."

Decor will be warm, a little retro, minimalist with "cool stuff everywhere."

"I guess it's going to look a little like my house," King says. "We're hoping super comfortable and warm and inviting. It's too small for it to be anything else. The energy will come from us."

Although King — who released an album Onward & Upward on State Fair Records in 2014 — is "officially retired" from music, she still writes songs and it's still a major part of her life. It's a legacy that will benefit Be Home Soon diners.

"As I get older, I focus on music that makes me happy, and am finding that my playlist is 100 percent female, so that's what we'll feature at the restaurant," she says."We're taking every female artist and putting in our favorite two to three songs. It's going to be so much fun. Everywhere you go it's the same dudes, I just decided, why not?"