In August 1984, Oak Lawn was still rough around the edges. Cedar Springs Road had the bars and a few brave storefronts, and not much else. That was the summer brothers Rick and David Barton opened a little hamburger counter near the corner of Cedar Springs and Throckmorton and called it Hunky’s.
Forty-two years later, it’s still there. The burgers still come off the grill, the onion rings are still made in-house, and on a warm night the patio still fills up before the sun goes down.
The food was never the whole story, though.
When Hunky’s opened, gay men and women in Dallas had their bars and their clubs, and very few places where they could sit in daylight, eat lunch and be themselves. Hunky’s became that place. It was one of the first businesses in town, outside the bars and clubs, to welcome the LGBTQ community with the doors wide open.
People had first dates in those booths. Couples who met there came back for anniversaries. Over the years, more than a few people told their parents they were gay across a table at Hunky’s, and Rick Barton has spent four decades hearing those stories from the customers who lived them.
The brothers built Hunky’s side by side for its first years. David Barton died in the early 1990s, and Rick kept the grill going on his own.
In 2009, Hunky’s moved into a bigger space in the old Crossroads Market building, right at the center of the intersection, with a patio twice the size of the original.
Rick had already planted a second flag by then. In November 2005, he opened a Hunky’s at 321 N. Bishop Ave., back when that stretch of Oak Cliff was still a few shops and a lot of potential. Both locations are still open today.
By early 2024, after 40 years behind the counter, Rick was ready to step back. Plenty of people wanted to buy Hunky’s. He wanted the right people.
He found them in Aaron Evans, Jeffrey Yarbrough and Sejal Tailor. The three partners bought both Hunky’s locations, along with The Hamburger Man, the catering truck that goes with them.
Dallas knows Yarbrough. He ran Club Clearview and Art Bar in Deep Ellum when that neighborhood was at its wildest, served as president of the Texas Restaurant Association and spent two years of red tape getting Texas Chicken Fried Steak Day written into state law.
He’s also been a Hunky’s regular since 1984. Back then he worked for Women’s Wear Daily at the Apparel Mart, and when he needed to take a client to lunch, he took them to Cedar Springs for a burger.
The new owners made one promise when they took over, and they’ve kept it. Nothing important changes.
“We are honored to be able to continue the legacy and serve this team and such a fabulous community,” Yarbrough says on the restaurant’s own history page.
He has called Hunky’s a refuge, a corner that is safe for everyone. Evans runs it day to day, the way Rick did, and some of the crew have been working those counters for 20 and 30 years.
What has changed is small and mostly fun. For the 40th birthday in 2024, Hunky’s rolled burgers back to 1984 prices for a day and debuted boozy milkshakes, which Yarbrough likes to describe as margaritas with Blue Bell. There’s a burger of the month now. The kitchen got some upgrades the crew had been asking for.
The rest is exactly where you left it. Get the old-fashioned cheeseburger with a side of onion rings, add a milkshake, and if you have any sense at all, look over the cake case before you leave.
Yarbrough has a lot on his plate right now. He and partner Camille McDonald are getting La Pistola ready to open in Fort Worth, across from Dickies Arena. Hunky’s is the older story. It’s a burger joint that helped build a neighborhood, and four decades on, it still opens its doors seven days a week.
Hunky’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers is at 3930 Cedar Springs Road in Oak Lawn, (214) 522-1212, and at 321 N. Bishop Ave. in Bishop Arts, (214) 941-3322. Both are open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and until 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
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