Get Well, Michelle

Pioneering Restaurant Beatrice in Dallas' Oak Cliff to close

Gumbo from Restaurant Beatrice.

Photo courtesy of Restaurant Beatrice

In a huge loss for Dallas' dining scene, an acclaimed restaurant in Oak Cliff is closing: Restaurant Beatrice, the Cajun restaurant at 1111 N. Beckley Ave. from award-winning chef Michelle Carpenter, will close on June 7, after four years.

Carpenter and her partner Hanh Ho are closing the restaurant so that Carpenter can recuperate from recent surgery she underwent to remove a brain tumor.

"Michelle is getting world-class medical treatment at UTSW," Ho says. "She’s herself, but there’s no cheffing during recovery. People might not understand the volume of manual labor required to be a real chef in a real restaurant."

“I can’t do recovery and run Beatrice,” Carpenter told D Magazine. “That is the reason [it is closing]. Even though these are difficult times, it would be hard to navigate while only giving 20 percent, or anything less than 100 percent of my focus.”

Carpenter opened the restaurant in 2022 as an effort to offer a new face of contemporary Cajun cuisine to Texas. Pronounced "bee-AT-russ," the restaurant is named after Carpenter's "Mammaw" or grandmother, Beatrice, and featured contemporary classics in a setting that embraced Louisiana hospitality and the Oak Cliff spirit of inclusiveness.

Chef Michelle Carpenter at Restaurant BeatriceCourtesy

Beatrice was her second restaurant, following Zen Sushi, which she opened in Bishop Arts in 2007, well before it became the hipster hangout it is today. She was also the first to offer vegan sushi, at least a decade before vegan became a major trend.

Zen Sushi will remain open.

Beyond the cuisine and culture, Restaurant Beatrice also pioneered a number of important initiatives including earning a B-Corporation certification — the first and only restaurant in Texas to obtain it. B Corporation is a for-profit business that has been verified to meet the highest standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability.

The restaurant's significant efforts at environmental stewardship included composting, re-purposing of oil (they recycled their fryer oil to be re-used as bio-diesel), and repurposing of single-use items by encouraging guests to return their mason jars and bring their own re-usable to-go boxes to limit single-use containers. And like its sibling Zen Sushi, Beatrice also championed vegetarian dishes.

Capstone dinner Chef Michelle Carpenter, center, mentoring student chefs Taqoya Williamson (left) and Riauna Clarke WRLP

In addition, Carpenter and Ho partnered with Dallas College to launch the Women in Restaurants Leadership Program (WRLP), an eight-week, tuition-free program that provide seminars, training, and stagiaire opportunities. Carpenter conceived the program with a goal of helping retain and advance more women in the industry and creating a more positive restaurant culture.

The restaurant earned multiple awards including a James Beard Award semifinalist for Best New Restaurant in 2023, Open Table's Icon Awards in 2024, plus multiple Tastemaker Awards including Best New Restaurant, Best Chef in 2023, and again in 2025, plus Best Dessert Program in 2026.

Their final meal will be brunch on Sunday, June 7.

oak cliff closings chefs

All You Can Eat News

Eki Sushi will bring buzzy sushi experience to southwest Dallas 'burb

A sushi restaurant with a little something extra is coming to Cedar Hill, on the southwest corner of Dallas: Called Eki Sushi, it'll open at 649 Uptown Blvd., where it will bring two buzzy options to a neighborhood eager to have them.

The restaurant is opening in a former Applebee’s, and is from a team that includes Meng Yang and Ben Zhu, who've operated other Asian restaurants in Texas. A spokesperson says they chose Cedar Hill, which is 18 miles southwest of downtown Dallas and just below Duncanville, because it's an up-and-coming area without many sushi restaurants so far.

They'll open in mid- to late-September.

Eki Sushi will offer:

a "revolving sushi" experience, in which pre-plated sushi is placed on a conveyor belt that circulates past tables, allowing diners to pluck them as they pass
"AYCE" all-you-can-eat sushi, in which diners pay a set price and order as much as they want

Both of these options have proven to be highly appealing to diners. The revolving sushi experience, for example, is a novelty with a sense of "fun" that takes it beyond the usual restaurant meal; entire chains are dedicated to the experience such as Kura Revolving Sushi Bar, which has numerous locations in the DFW area.

AYCE sushi places, also plentiful around DFW, are a lure for those seeking variety and instant gratification. And like a buffet, they allow diners unfamiliar with a cuisine to try a variety of dishes at a low-risk low price.

That said, Eki will follow the lead of many AYCE places that monitor your consumption to avoid waste; if you don't finish the food you order, you get charged regular price. There's also a 90-minute limit — no all-day gluttony — and it's priced differently depending on time of day: $20 at lunch, $30 at dinner, and $31 on weekends.

Eki has a massive menu with sashimi, sushi rolls, 25 specialty rolls from the prototypical Rainbow Roll with crab, cucumber, and avocado, draped with tuna and salmon, to the Sweetheart Roll with spicy tuna, cucumber, and avocado, wrapped in soy paper as well as seaweed and artfully fashioned into a heart-shaped roll.

In addition to sushi, the menu also offers Asian appetizers like edamame, spring rolls, egg rolls, tempura, and gyoza, plus wings and French fries, which are surely welcome in any restaurant, regardless of cuisine.

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