Chicago-style food ranks as a category of perennial interest in Dallas-Fort Worth, and now there's a new restaurant to put on the list. Called Shoagies, it's a newly-opened spot in McKinney, where it's doing authentic Chicago-style foods and hoagies.

The restaurant is at 5121 Collin McKinney Pkwy., in a newish strip center alongside a ramen shop, shipping store, and a coffee-and-crepes shop — a neat storefront boasting a massive mural that runs down the length of the wall with notable Black figures like Kanye West.

Shoagies is from Erin "Sho" Lewis, a colorful entrepreneur who has owned restaurants in her native Chicago. The restaurant's name combines her nickname with the hoagie sandwiches for which it is known.

The menu includes eight hoagie sandwiches all with cute Chicago-themed names such as:

• Wild 100's, a turkey hoagie
• D'Rose, with gyros, roast beef, corned beef, and giardinera
• The Shed, with fried catfish and shrimp in a Cajun batter
• Harvey World, with Italian beef, gyros, cheese, & tzatiki sauce
• Chicago Fire, a Buffalo chicken sanwich with blue cheese crumbles
• Out West, with jerk chicken & purple cabbage
• The Taste, with Italian beef, Italian sausage, tri-color peppers, and gravy
• The Gold Coast, a surf & turf with ribeye and grilled shrimp

Other menu offerings include a gyro, Philly cheesesteak, cheeseburger, chicken fajita pita, an oversized taco, a "walking" taco served in a single-serving Doritos bag, and "puffs" in two varieties: pizza puff and gyro puff. A pizza puff is a Chicago original consisting of a deep-fried dough pocket filled with cheese, tomato sauce, and other pizza ingredients.

Their fries are waffle fries which you can order plain or in loaded versions, topped with choice of Buffalo chicken, Cajun shrimp, Philly steak or chicken, or gyro cheese fries.

One little extra they have that you do not always find at a sandwich shop is a bar with margaritas, sangria, and frozen drinks. On May 4, they'll launch a new Happy Hour happening every Thursday from 4-7 pm, with $7 sangrias, long islands, and margaritas, news that comes in the nick of time.