Not every piece of Dallas food news needs its own headline, but stacked together, this week’s smaller stories add up to a pretty full picture of where the city’s eating and drinking scene is headed. A few closings, a few openings, and a couple of anniversary parties worth showing up for.
Deep Ellum is losing one of its longest-running restaurants. Zátar Lebanese Tapas & Bar is closing on or around August 23 after nearly a decade on Commerce Street, and the owners say the decision came down to the neighborhood’s endless construction rather than a lack of business. The street’s conversion from one-way to two-way traffic has dragged on for two years and just got pushed back again to 2027, and Zátar’s team says that delay was the deciding factor. It’s at least the sixth Deep Ellum food and beverage spot to announce a closure this year, which says as much about the state of that stretch of Commerce Street as it does about any one restaurant.
On the opening side, El Molino is doubling down on Dallas with a second location, this one landing in the Preston Royal Shopping Center on August 10. The original opened in Snider Plaza less than a year ago and built a following fast enough to earn a Best New Restaurant nomination. The new spot is roughly 6,000 square feet, more than double the size of the original, with an expanded menu that adds elote corn chowder, tuna nachos, and grilled Sonora quail to the wood-fired fajita program that made the first location a hit.
Wylie is getting its own version of game day headquarters. Walk-On’s Sports Bistreaux, the Louisiana sports bar chain co-owned by Drew Brees with Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott among its franchise partners, opens August 10 at 906 FM 544. It’s the chain’s 20th Texas location and only its second in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, serving scratch-made Cajun and Creole dishes like crawfish étouffée and duck and andouille gumbo alongside the expected wall of televisions. The grand opening includes a giveaway for the first 100 guests: free Walk-On’s for a year.
The Sicilian Butcher‘s North Dallas location is marking its first year with a party that sounds more like a red carpet premiere than a restaurant anniversary. Chef and co-founder Joey Maggiore is hosting “A Night in Sicily” on Saturday, August 15, at the Belt Line Road location, with stations of cured meats and cheeses, house-made pastas, slow-braised short ribs, and chicken scarpariello. Tickets run $65, and reservations are recommended given the mix-and-mingle format.
Up on the 49th floor, Monarch is celebrating five years with a Sunday brunch built around the Amalfi Coast rather than its usual wood-fired Italian menu. “A Taste of the Amalfi Coast” runs this Sunday, August 16, with warm focaccia and heirloom tomato caprese to start, then a choice of lobster benedict, rigatoni carbonara, or lemon ricotta pancakes. Brunch runs $95, $35 for kids under 12, with bottomless mimosas available for an extra $33 and Riviera-inspired attire encouraged.
And for something outside the kitchen entirely, the Meadows Museum at SMU opens “Spectacles of Power and Faith: Colonial South American Art from the Thoma Foundation” on August 23, and it’s a genuinely significant show for the city. Sixty-three paintings from the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Foundation’s collection, most created between 1600 and 1850 across present-day Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, many never before displayed or published. The exhibition includes an immersive chapel installation enhanced with music and scent, and after it closes here in January, it travels to Princeton and Notre Dame. Dallas gets it first.
