A restaurant-sports bar is coming to a key intersection in Dallas' Lake Highlands: Called Underdog Restaurant and Sports Club, it'll open with sports, entertainment, food, and drink at 6750 Abrams Rd. #110, where it will debut in early April.

It's going into the Creekside Shopping Center at the intersection of Skillman Street, the same center as Alamo Drafthouse, in a building on the outer edge of the parking lot that was once a Sigel's liquor store, but has seen turnover in recent years.

Fireside Pies opened a location there in 2019 on the brink of the pandemic; it closed in 2023. The building was also home to Sugarfire Smoke House, a BBQ chain from St. Louis that should have been a slam-dunk. Alas, they closed in December 2022.

Underdog is from the same team that owns the similar Hangout Restaurant and Sports Club in Irving. That includes manager Ross Edinboro, who's worked in the hotel industry and Dallas' nightlife realm at venues such as Plush, Gatsby, Lotus on McKinney, Club 8 Nightclub & Hotel, and Bar2909 in Fort Worth, as well as Happiest Hour in Dallas' Harwood District.

Chef is Ben Maulsby, who worked with Harwood Hospitality for seven years, and previously at hotels such as the Hilton Anatole and The Statler Hotel.

Their partners are Prajwal Chhetri, an Army veteran with a background in software development, and Bachan Tiwari, a seasoned entrepreneur with more than a decade of experience owning multiple successful businesses.

Their goals sound basic enough: good food, bar program, lounge, a second bar with open-air access to a wide patio, an L-shaped bar surrounded by 35 TVs, a 15-foot LED video wall broadcasting games, DJ booth for late-night vibes, a game area with four Brunswick pool tables, and dart boards.

The food menu will include bar bites, pizzas, sandwiches, and gourmet burgers. But there's more to it than that, chef Maulsby says.

"Our focus is that we are a from-scratch kitchen, so there's nothing coming from a box," he says. "My goal is to try and make good food that the neighborhood will like."

That means sandwiches, smashburgers, and pizza — "I don't know if you can call it New York-style pizza but it will have a medium crust but super thin in middle," he says.

They'll also do some of the Southern dishes for which Maulsby is known: meat loaf, fish & chips, chicken & waffles, short rib chili, country fried steak, wings, tenders, a fun mac & cheese egg roll, and prototypical starters like fried pickles and pimento cheese dip.

Maulsby is enjoying the creative freedom that goes with a more casual restaurant than his fine-dining background. He's obsessed with doing a good ham and cheese sandwich with really nice ham and bread they make in-house. They'll make all their breads including the rolls for lobster rolls.

Like many, he caught the bread-making bug during COVID. "I am a good chef but I was never a baker," he says. "But I started making bread — cinnamon rolls, sourdough, a rustic country bread, and I developed recipes we'll put to use here."