Author News

Dallas restaurant honcho to do book signing for his dishy new tell-all tome

Restaurant industr veteran Mark Brezinski has written a dishy new book.

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A Dallas-based restaurant industry honcho has written a dishy new book: Called ForkFight! Whisks, Risks, and Conflicts Behind the Restaurant Curtain, it's by Mark Brezinski, a 45-year food & beverage pro famous for creating or co-creating some of the industry's biggest game-changing concepts.

Heralded by Simon & Schuster as "the most compelling, insightful, and white-knuckled journey behind the restaurant curtain since Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential," the 225-page hardcover book, published by Post Hill Press, chronicles Brezinski's colorful career, spanning the globe in search of culinary discoveries and inspirations with industry icons like the late Norman Brinker, Paul Fleming, Phil Romano, and chefs Michael Mina and Mark Miller.

If you love hot gossip about restaurant industry bigwigs, this book is a must-read.

Brezinski will be doing a book signing of ForkFight! on Saturday, April 22 from 1-3 pm at Bizzy Burger Merchants, his latest concept, located at 13251 Montfort Dr., Dallas.

A graduate of the famed School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, Brezinski has had a hand in creating multiple nationally acclaimed restaurant companies, from Pei Wei to Velvet Taco to Tin Star to Trinity Groves.

In a statement, Brezinski says that he uses the book to open up about his successes and failures in the restaurant world, wherein he worked alongside some "dynamic" personalities, dynamic, that's a nice word.

"This is certainly a no-holds-barred look inside this consistently challenging industry that keeps me coming back for more," he says.

Former associates and collaborators such as Christophe Poirier, Chief Brand Officer, New Business Development, at Pizza Hut Global, offer high praise.

"Many creative guys are working on renovation, they take something that exists, polish it, and make it look new," Poirier says. "Not Mark. He has the capability to create a new blue ocean."

Lane Cardwell, former CEO of Boston Market, former President of P.F. Chang's China Bistro, and former CEO of Eatzi's Market & Bakery, notes that despite all his achievements, Brezinski retains an almost-surprising humility.

"I have lived in this industry for decades and learned something new about it in every chapter of the book," Cardwell says. "Informative, entertaining, and filled with life lessons, ForkFight! should yield this humble individual the credit he so rightfully deserves for his contributions to the industry."

Brezinski's creations have won many a "Hot Concept" award, and he was recently named one of "Nation's Restaurant News Most Influential Restaurant CEOs." D Magazine hailed him as "the father of Dallas' fast casual food scene" and in 2020, he was named one of North Texas Top 500 CEOs by the D CEO Magazine.

His travels have taken him from Tokyo to Tuscany, from San Francisco to Shanghai, and from Mumbai to Maui. And while his concept have comprised a wide range of cuisines, including Indian, Italian, French, and Vietnamese, Brezinski says he has always had a soft spot for Asian food - in concepts he consulted on such as Marugame Udon, and in restaurants he founded, such as Bengal Coast, the Asian-fusion restaurant he founded in the Centrum Building on Oak Lawn Avenue, now closed.

Dallas has been the lucky recipient of many of his innovative ideas and concepts including

Banh Shop, the fast-casual banh mi concept he helped Yum! Brands launch in 2014
Food halls: Brezinski was well ahead of the curve when he co-founded Uptown Urban Market, a food hall in the Gables building in Uptown Dallas in 2014
Bizzy Burger Merchants, his newest concept that reimagines a better version of fast food, featuring petite burgers made from HeartBrand Premium Akaushi Beef served on cult favorite King's Hawaiian buns

"I hope that this book takes readers to all of these places and more while telling behind-the-scenes stories — sometimes funny, often heartbreaking, and never without lessons learned," Brezinski says. "I believe that the journey is a remarkable tag-along to the highs and lows of being an entrepreneur and the self-discovery that comes with each stop."

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Pizza News

Yonx Pizza seduces north Dallas suburbs with New York-style pies

Yonx

Yonx Pizza, by the slice.

A pizzeria with a dedicated following has debuted in Melissa: Yonx Pizza Bar & Co., an indie spot that does New York-style pizzas as well as pizza by the slice, has opened a location at 1521 McKinney St. #700 — an address that had pizza history as it was home for nearly a decade to a Palio's Pizza, which closed in 2025.

Yonx is from Robert Hede, a restaurant veteran who was previously involved with the Village Burger Bar chain, where he was a partner. He switched from burgers to pizza in 2022 when he connected with NY Pizza and Pints, a small local pizzeria chain, opening a location in Wylie at 1125 FM 544 #800. After two years, he broke off from the chain to found Yonx at the same address.

Yonx does the kind of New York-style thin-crust pizza that Dallas-Fort Worth loves, in a standard 14-inch, as well as a massive 24-inch "Kong" size. They also do slices, which can be ordered as a lunch with a Caesar salad for $9.99.

Varieties include familiar favorites like pepperoni, as well as slightly gourmet options with New York-inspired names such as:

Balsamic on Bleeker St., with garlic sauce, mushrooms, shaved ribeye, mozzarella cheese, arugula, and balsamic drizzle
Bronx Bomb, with Sicilian marinara, mozzarella, meatballs, mushrooms, and ricotta cheese
Brooklyn, basically a meat-lovers with Sicilian marinara, mozzarella, sliced ham, chopped meatball, beef, & pepperoni
Greenwich Garden, a vegetarian with Sicilian marinara, mozzarella, red & green bell peppers, white onions, mushrooms, spinach, & black olives

Prices range from $16 for a 14-inch cheese pizza to $46 for a NY Giant Supreme Soho with Sicilian marinara, mozzarella, pepperoni, sausage, beef, red & green bell peppers, white onions, sliced mushrooms, & black olives.

Yonx Pizza soup in a bread bowl.Photo courtesy of Yonx

There are also sandwiches on house-made toasted focaccia such as the Italian tower with melted provolone cheese, sliced ham, salami, lettuce, red onion, pepperoncinis, & sundried tomato aioli.

Appetizers include comforting soups served in a bread bowl including tomato basil and jalapeno cream soup with charred jalapenos. Plus wings, garlic knots, and "Brooklyn Ballers" — their signature meatballs in marinara, made in-house. topped with whipped ricotta and Parmesan, served with pesto and focaccia ends.

A full bar features frozen margaritas and frozen mojitos made with agave gold tequila. The best day to order those is "Frozen Fridays" from 11 am-10:30 pm when the blueberry mojitos are $6 and the margaritas are $5.

The Melissa location opened in January, with the same menu as the Wylie original, and has been met with an unprecedented wave of positive reviews on Facebook: one comment after another raving over how great the pizza is, and what a godsend it is — positive reviews that began to stack up even before the place had officially opened, the likes of which have been rarely seen.

This location boasts almost double the size of the original in Wylie, with a covered patio where they'll host live music on the weekends outside.

Hede, who has been hands-on at the Melissa location since it opened, says he's all-in on these northernmost suburbs of Dallas.

"I like this area — I feel like all the growth is heading out in this direction, there's just a lot of activity up here," he says.

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