by | October 12, 2026 · 3:39 pm

Zalat Pizza Opens Its 30th Location Today in Duncanville

Zalat Pizza opens in Duncanville today, Monday, October 12, and it is a milestone. The new shop at 325 S. Cedar Ridge Drive, in the Cedar Park Shopping Center near Wheatland Road, is the 30th Zalat in Texas.

That number still takes some getting used to. Khanh Nguyen, a former attorney, opened his Vietnamese restaurant DaLat on Fitzhugh Avenue in 2012. When the space next door came open, he turned it into a late-night pizza window for the cooks, servers and bartenders who get off work when most kitchens are closed. That was the first Zalat, in 2015. CraveDFW had the very first slice to come out of that oven, and it is hard to believe how far that little shop has come. With Duncanville, there are now 22 Zalats around Dallas-Fort Worth, six in Houston and two in Austin.

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by | October 12, 2026 · 3:31 pm

The Best Haunted Houses in Dallas-Fort Worth for Halloween 2026

Cutting Edge

Every October, a handful of North Texas buildings stop pretending to be warehouses and meatpacking plants and go back to what they apparently always wanted to be, which is terrifying. Dallas-Fort Worth has one of the strongest haunted house scenes in the country, including the attraction USA Today readers just voted the best in America. If you want a real scare before Halloween, these are worth the drive.

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by | October 12, 2026 · 3:00 pm

Plano’s Jashan Is the First Indian Restaurant in DFW to Make the Michelin Guide

photos by Joey Stewart

Collin County has become one of the best places in Texas to eat Indian food. For three years, the Michelin Guide did not seem to notice any of it. This month that changed. Jashan, an upscale Indian restaurant in Plano, landed on Michelin’s 2026 Recommended list less than a year after it opened, and it is the first Indian restaurant in Dallas-Fort Worth ever recognized by the guide. It was also the only Plano restaurant on this year’s list.

Jashan means celebration, and the restaurant feels like one. It opened on November 13, 2025, at 7401 Lone Star Drive in Legacy North, in the big space that used to be Farm + Feed. It is the first restaurant for owner Prasanna Singaraju, who spent his career in tech before deciding food was his calling. He even enrolled in cooking school to prepare for it.

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by | October 12, 2026 · 12:42 pm

Empower Ride App Pays Drivers 100%, Here’s How

There is a newer way to get around Dallas-Fort Worth, and in our experience it has been cheaper than every other rideshare app we use. It is called Empower, and it arrived in North Texas this spring.

Empower works differently from Uber and Lyft. Instead of taking a cut of every fare, the company charges drivers a flat subscription to use its app, $29.99 a month in Dallas, and the drivers set their own prices and keep 100 percent of what riders pay. The company says that model makes its rides about 20 percent cheaper on average than Uber and Lyft. Our own rides around town have backed that up.

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by | October 12, 2026 · 12:22 pm

The State Fair Spent a Year Trying to Win You Back. Here’s How to Spend Its Final Week

The State Fair of Texas is down to its last week, and this year it has something to prove.

Last fall was rough. The 2025 Fair drew 2,020,064 people, roughly 400,000 fewer than the year before, and that was the lowest turnout in at least eight years. Fair officials blamed the economy and the heat. Fairgoers mostly blamed their receipts. Social media was full of price complaints that October, and families told reporters they had stayed home because they simply could not afford a day at Fair Park.

Fair president Mitchell Glieber went before the Dallas City Council afterward and said pricing would be a priority for 2026. The Fair only controls admission and parking. Vendors set their own prices for food and games. Still, you can see the effort this year.

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by | October 12, 2026 · 12:02 pm

Alex Fletcher’s Rising Tides Is the Best Kind of East Dallas Dive

If you have had a good cocktail in Dallas any time in the last 15 years, there is a decent chance Alex Fletcher had a hand in it. He started as a barback at The Quarter Bar, then ran the bar programs at The Quarter, Bread Winners, Victor Tangos and the original Henry’s Majestic. Until late 2023 he was national beverage director for Hospitality Alliance, the group behind Toyota Music Factory and Victory Park, and his own company, Shaken + Stirred Hospitality, has partnered with places like Henry’s Majestic and Punch Bowl Social. A neighborhood dive on Garland Road might look like an odd next move for Dallas’ go-to cocktail guy.

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by | October 9, 2026 · 4:41 pm

Brunch at Mercat Bistro

Weekend brunch at Mercat Bistro feels a lot like a long Saturday in Paris, only with valet parking. It is a European-style bistro in the Harwood District, and Michelin recommended the place and brunch is one of the easiest ways to see why.

Before you order, know one thing that sets this kitchen apart. Mercat cooks only with beef tallow, rendered in-house from the Harwood District’s own premium beef program, and it uses no nut or seed oils at all. The restaurant calls it a whole-animal, zero-waste approach. It matters most with anything fried, so pay attention to the potato galette and the frites.

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by | October 9, 2026 · 2:25 pm

Pillar Closes in Bishop Arts After Less Than Two Years

Pillar, chef Peja Krstic’s bistro in the Bishop Arts District, is gone after less than two years. It closed on September 30, the same day its landlord locked the doors.

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