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    Vegan News

    Award-winning Dallas vegan chef opens TLC 'tastes like chicken' cafe

    Teresa Gubbins
    Nov 14, 2022 | 5:11 pm
    TLC cafe

    If it's chicken-fried, it has to be good.

    TLC Vegan Cafe

    A new vegan cafe has debuted in Richardson from an award-winning chef. Called TLC Vegan Cafe, it's from vegan chef Troy Gardner, and it opened at 1930 N. Coit Rd. #140 on November 11.

    It's in the space previously occupied by Reverie Bakeshop, the vegan and gluten-free bakery, which relocated to 980 Coit Rd. in June. With seating for about 30, TLC will have dine-in service plus a market for sandwiches and other grab-and-go items.

    The Cafe is an evolution from TLC Vegan Kitchen, the ghost kitchen concept Gardner founded during the pandemic at Revolving Kitchen in Garland.

    TLC Vegan Kitchen was voted D Magazine’s Best Vegan restaurant and won CultureMap's Tastemaker Award in 2021 for Best Ghost Kitchen.

    The menu includes Gardner's signature oyster mushrooms, said to taste like chicken, the inspiration for the name TLC, which stands for "Tastes like Chicken."

    Other items include:

    • chicken fried steak
    • lasagna with house-made ricotta, mozzarella, & parmesan
    • chocolate lava cake
    • banana foster pudding

    Gardner is partnered with Sherry Copeland, owner of Jai Meals, a food service located at the Shops at Willow Bend in Plano serving vegan meals from different chefs for pick-up or home delivery. Copeland wanted a storefront outside of the mall and leased the Richardson spot.

    TLC Vegan Café will be among the first locations in the country to offer Better Balance, a new plant-based food brand currently available in Europe and Mexico that launched in the U.S. in 2022 and is headquartered in Dallas.

    Gardner was previously co-owner and chef at V-Eats in Trinity Groves, as well as owner and chef at Samson’s Gourmet Hot Dogs from 2013 to 2016, where half of the menu was vegan - catching the eye of celebrities like Erykah Badu and Andre 3000 of Outkast. He also had a successful catering business called Mobile Gourmet that he started in 1997, where he first started serving and adding vegan dishes.

    In late 2018, he was featured on the Food Network’s Guy’s Grocery Games, Season 20, episode 1 of the “Clash of the Vegetarians." In 2022, he published his first cookbook of plant-based recipes called Easy Southern Vegan Cookbook and also launched a line of spice mixes called Veganize IT!

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    Steak & Ale News

    Local opening of Dallas chain Steak and Ale gets derailed

    Teresa Gubbins
    May 16, 2025 | 5:27 pm
    Steak and Ale
    Steak and Ale
    Steak and Ale

    The long-in-the-works return of Steak and Ale in Dallas is being shelved for now: The casual steakhouse chain which in its heyday had nearly 300 locations is no longer opening a location it planned for in Grand Prairie.

    According to a May 11 post from company owner Paul Mangiamele, the restaurant is definitely now a no-go.

    "After years of very hard and exhausting work for making the Grand Prairie side by side S&A and Bennigan’s happen, the rug has been yanked out from under us," Mangiamele said in his post.

    Often referred to as a pioneer in casual dining, Steak and Ale debuted in 1966, offering an affordable steakhouse experience with rustic Tudor design that included wooden beams and stained glass. In addition to steak and a signature salad bar, the menu featured then-fancy items such as steak Oscar, baby back ribs, and Hawaiian chicken with pineapple teriyaki sauce.

    The chain remained a buzzy destination throughout the '70s and '80s, but by 2008, the parent company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and the remaining locations closed.

    In 2023, businessman Paul Mangiamele, chairman and CEO of Legendary Restaurant Brands (which includes Monte Cristo sandwich purveyor Bennigan’s and Bennigan’s On The Fly, which he has also revived), launched a long-held plan to revive the Steak and Ale concept that included opening a new Steak and Ale in Burnsville, Minnesota, as well as partnering with a franchisee to open a location in Grand Prairie, side-by-side with a Bennigan's.

    The Minnesota location opened in August 2024, but Grand Prairie will not be so lucky, and according to Mangiamele, it's due to the shenanigans of the franchisee.

    "For years, we were being told by the developer and owner of the land how he was going to be our franchise partner," Mangiamele says. "He shared with me numerous times how he grew up with the brands and wanted to do his part in honoring Norman Brinker and would be a proud franchise owner. Well, after he finally (3 years later) received his money for selling some of his land, instead of being our franchise partner, he changed his tune, and wanted to instead, sell his land to us!!"

    According to Mangiamele, not only did the franchisee try to sell back the land, he tried to make a profit.

    "Our special deal was a ‘discounted’ price per foot on the land we’d need," Mangiamele says. "After a few due diligence calls, the discounted ’deal’ price was 20% higher than the comparable prices in the same area!! Simply unbelievable!"

    Mangiamele says they are still talking to other interested parties in the greater DFW area and should have more news soon.

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