Pizza News
Last Call Pizza debuts in North Dallas serving slices until the wee hours
How about a slice.
Dallas has a new purveyor of New York-style pizza: Last Call Pizza is a new restaurant in North Dallas serving New York pizza both by the pie and by the slice, late into the evening hours, thus the name Last Call.
It'll officially open on November 5 at 18101 Preston Rd. #302, at the northwest corner of Frankford Road, in a former event space/cooking school called Taste Dallas.
Last Call is from a team headed by Brad Hawkins, who knows all about last call, as a founding partner of Sushi Marquee as well as Shakertins, the popular bar-restaurant concept with locations in Allen, Plano, The Colony, and Prosper.
He's partnered with Matt Saba, who was a founding partner of Shell Shack; Adam Thompson, who owns AHL poker, the No. 1 free poker league in Texas; and Airon Wallace, an industry veteran who co-owns pool hall/bar The Water Hole in Hurst.
Their original goal was to do a card house but card houses, despite being legal, have become a controversial issue. So they pivoted to a dream they'd shared: to do a slice joint.
"We had this great location, and we'd talked about doing a New York-style pizza-by-the-slice place," Hawkins says. "That was the foundation, which we expanded into a hybrid: doing slices if you want, but also full pies, with a full bar, pool tables, and sports on TV."
The late-night component was key. "We wanted to serve pizza 'til 2 am," he says.
They also wanted to make it relatively affordable, starting at $12 for a 12-inch pie, going all the way up to a 24-inch pizza for $24.
"Our formula was that a basic pizza is a buck an inch," he says. "We wanted to provide a big pie for a fair price."
They're making their own dough in-house and with a small selection of pizzas that include veggie, meat lovers, pepperoni, and chicken blanco. A make-your-own option includes choice of ingredients such as spicy sausage, artichoke hearts, and beef pepperoni -- "for people who don't eat pork," Hawkins says.
They also have an assortment of starters such as friee mushrooms, fried pickles, and meatballs; salads including Caesar and Greek; and their secret weapon, wings.
"From our friends and family, we're getting as many positive comments about wings as well as the pizza," he says. "Most pizza places bake their wings, but we have fryers, so we're getting that crispiness that people crave."
The fryers were a legacy from the previous tenant, along with a full kitchen. They added pool tables -- they anticipate hosting pool leagues -- and a bar with numerous big-screens to address local interest in college and NFL football.
One unexpected development has been the interest in the area from families.
"We've seen so many families knocking on our door, and we'll definitely be family-friendly," he says.
