Lisa Garza juggles relationships to get Sissy's Fried Chicken open.

Although La Garza is all about sisterhood (“I am Sissy,” Garza says. “Sissy is southern slang for “sister” and I am developing every aspect.”) there will be no sissy in the kitchen. La G has plucked Jeffery Hobbs and named him “leader of the kitchen.”

Oh, it’s a tangled tale—an episode of As the Restaurant Turns. Here’s the synopsis: Lisa was married to Chef Gilbert Garza. Together they operated Suze Restaurant, the cozy spot on Midway and NW Highway. At some point, Jeffery Hobbs joined the happy couple to work on the kitchen team as chef and partner. Hobbs and Gilbert ran a great restaurant. Lisa concentrated on catering. Lisa was picked as a contestant on Next Food Network Star. The experience was devastating, as most former TV reality participants will admit is generally the case. The Garzas divorced and Lisa retreated for a couple of years. She emerged as a fancy caterer. Found a new guy. Got re-married and is now pregnant with new restaurant.

After eight years at Suze, Hobbs splits to partner with burgeoning bully restaurateur, Jack “Maple & Motor” Perkins. They’re consulting on taco joints. Then La G calls Hobbs and asks him to be the “leader of her kitchen.” According to La G, Gilbert has given his blessing to the deal. See, there can be happy endings. Or beginnings. Stay tuned.

View When Dining In The Pyramid Garden

Back in the day, The Pyramid Room at the Fairmont Hotel was a top destination restaurant for Dallas diners. Over the years, corporate priorities changed at the hotel and the restaurant turned into a JAHR (Just Another Hotel Restaurant). However, in the last two years, and somewhat under the radar, the pendulum has swung back. The restaurant underwent a major remodel to keep the class but remove the starch. The last chef, J.W. Foster, left a large herb garden growing on the rooftop patio. Now André Natera, an experienced hand in Fairmont circles, is the executive chef and he has performed a major shakeup in the kitchen. Incoming sommelier, Hunter Hammett, has vastly increased the number and quality of wine selections. There are now 235 selections and the list has a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence.

The interior of the restaurant is accented the dramatic wine cellar that line the walls at each end of the main dining room. Hundreds of bottles lay behind glass partitions in a climate-controlled environment. These are all the signs of an establishment on the move. It is clear that the Pyramid Restaurant and Bar (as it is now called) is aiming to rejoin the top flight of Dallas restaurants as a destination for Dallasites and visitors alike. At a media event last week, I was fortunate to try the best and certainly the most unusual experience one can have at the Pyramid (as I will shorten its lengthy name to from now on): Dining in the garden on the terrace, several floors above street level.

Chef Natera Harvests a Watermelon From the Roof Garden

Sure, they have the seven-course menu (plus an amuse) and wine pairings with each course. I will come back to these shortly. But the most special part of this experience is dining al fresco on the patio in the heart of downtown Dallas in the delightful temperatures that we get in the fall. There is only one garden dining table and it can be expanded from two to eight people. It is surrounded by the shrubs and the herb garden. A short distance from the garden are the beehives that produce the Fairmont’s honey (this undertaking is in conjunction with the
Texas Honeybee Guild which works to foster healthy bee colonies). The roof is also home to a watermelon patch, a fig tree, and  bay tree. Soft lights make the experience homely. However, the view of the nighttime Dallas skyline is almost indescribable. The buildings look even more massive than they are during the day. But in the cloak of night they assume an air of mystery and drama, as though there is a story of intrigue behind each one. It all adds up to a special experience and one I think is best shared by two people.

Foie Gras Torchon, Pickled Grapes, Pumpkin Brioche

On to the food! We started out with an amuse bouche of Foie Gras Torchon, Pickled Grapes and Pumpkin Brioche. The picture shows the pickled grapes on top of the foie gras, indicating the classic combination of fruit and foie. What it cannot convey is the sheer richness of the foie gras. Absolute heaven on a plate. Sommelier Hunter Hammett did the wine pairings and for this course chose a sparklng wine, the 2008 Schramsberg, Blanc de Blancs, North Coast, California.

Celery Root Velouté, Spanish Chorizo, Smoked Olive Oil

Our first course was a suitably seasonal soup. Celery Root Velouté, Spanish Chorizo, Smoked Olive Oil. This was one of my favorite dishes of the evening and, for a soup to be so memorable that it still ranks as a favorite seven courses later, must make it remarkable. The velouté’s texture was as smooth as velvet and each chunk of chorizo a spike of spicy pork. The picture really don’t do it justice to the soup because the bowl is the same color as the soup. Maybe the Pyramid can use the slowdown in the F-35 program in Fort Worth to commission Lockheed to do some matt black carbon fiber bowls, especially for this soup? That would help to convey the drama. Accompanying it was the most unusual wine of the night: 2010 Txomín Etxaníz, Hondarrabi Zuri, Getariako Txakolina. The surplus ‘x’s are a giveaway that the name is in the Basque language and, in this case, the wine is from the Spanish Basque Country. Txomín Etxaníz is the winery. Hondarrabi Zuri is the grape, a white vitis vinifera vine native to this area. If it sounds obscure it is because it is, truly obscure. However, the wine is easy to like. It is closest in style to a Sauvignon Blanc from northern France: High in acidity, rich in mineral flavors. In contrast to New World Sauvignons it is not citrusy. Its absence of fruit makes it definitely better with food (like this velouté, or shellfish) rather than on its own. Congratulations to Hammett on finding this wine and pairing it so appropriately.

Raw Root Vegetable Salad, Blood Orange Gelée

Next was the salad course: Raw Root Vegetable Salad, Blood Orange Gelée.This is one of those menu names that drastically under states what you get. As the picture illustrates, someone went wild with the mandolin and shaved carrots, beets (golden and red) and radishes gossamer-thin for this dish. It was served on one of those brutish grey slabs. Juxtapositional genius. Tough as it usually is to pair wine with salad (on account of the vinegar), Hammett served the 2006 Henri Brunier, Le Pigeoulet Blanc, Vaucluse.  This is one of those glorious southern Rhone white wines (that are made from
native grapes like Grenache Blanc, Clairette Blanche, Roussanne, and Marsanne) that will one day be discovered but, for now, remains the exclusive preserve of a coven of discerning palates who won’t let on that this guy also owns Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe in famed Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

In this respect, Hammett must be regarded as a fifth columnist, a two-timer, a whistleblower who must be snuffed out at the earliest possible opportunity for spilling the secret. This particular wine is a blend or Roussanne, Grenache Blanc and Clairette. It is superb on its own, or with food like André Natera’s salad. Minerally, citrusy and complex.

Alfredo Agnolotti

The Alfredo Agnolotti will win a lot of people’s ‘Best Of Meal’ awards. However, consume these with care. The Alfredo sauce is inside each agnolotto. So, as you bite in, it spurts out! The effect is quite invigorating, but be ready for it (or bring your dry cleaner to dinner)! With this course we had the 2007 Nikolaihof, Grüner Veltliner, Hefeabzug, Wachau. The multi-faceted Grüner Veltliner grape has already caught on in other US cities. Hopefully, Dallas will soon follow. Several forward-looking restaurants carry one on their lists. Think of it as a substitute for Sauvignon Blanc, some Chardonnays, and all of those industrial-grade Pinot Grigios.

Butter Poached Lobster, Soy Braised Mushrooms and Salsify

The smell of butter from the Butter Poached Lobster, Soy Braised Mushrooms and Salsify exuded opulence.. The richness of the lobster just kept on coming as we made our way through the ample helping. One thing that I found really interesting was how subtle the soy was in the mushrooms. Soy is a bruiser, but there was barely a hint in this mixture of beech, maitake and morels. Hammett went totally mainstream with the lobster, serving 2009 Bouchaine Chardonnay, Estate Vineyards, Carneros, Napa Valley. This is a classic, California Chardonnay, although it is lighter on the oak than many.

Braised Lamb Terrine, Roasted Lamb Loin, Braised Greens and Root Vegetables

Braised Lamb Terrine, Roasted Lamb Loin, Braised Greens and Root Vegetables was exactly what this fall evening called for in terms of a main course. The terrine is at the back of the loin in the picture, supporting it on the plate. The terrine is a kind of homage to traditional peasant autumns when prime cuts like tenderloin were rarely seen. It exuded flavor and aromas that made one ready to embrace that older cuisine of stews and soups. Suitably, the wine pairing, 2008 Domaine Tempier, Cuvée Classique, Bandol has a similar heritage. From a peasant wine made from the (then) unsexy Mourvèdre grape, it has emerged on the world scene as a ‘must have’ brand. This moderately aged vintage went very well with the lamb.

Gorganzola Honey Mousse, Cassis Poached Pears, Brown Butter Shortbread, Rosemary Walnut Toffee

Finally the dessert. Why have one when two will do? First, the Gorganzola Honey Mousse, Cassis Poached Pears, Brown Butter Shortbread, Rosemary Walnut Toffee speaks for itself in the photo. It came with 2005 Domaine des Baumard, Quarts de Chaume. A delightfully non-cloying dessert wine made in the Anjou-Saumur region of the Loire from 100% Chenin Blanc.

Then, the Chocolate-Pomegranate Pavé, Pomegranate Ice Cream, Mint Pomegranate Salad was a tour de force. The intense, dark chocolate taste offset by the tangy fruitiness of the pomegranate. It had real presence in the mouth and a long aftertaste. Fortunately, this

Chocolate-Pomegranate Pavé, Pomegranate Ice Cream, Mint Pomegranate Salad

was served with NV Red Caboose Winery, Port-Style Red, Meridian, Texas. This is my first encounter with this winery, located just north of Waco, but this wine is promising. Hammett explained that they use the same grapes used to make Port in the Porto region of Portugal and that they will soon be distilling on
site to make the brandy to use in the port. This looks like a winery to watch.

The price of the Chef’s Tasting Menu is $95. Comparable with others across town and there was not a weak or incorrectly prepared dish in the bunch. The optional wine selections are $40 and I would choose them. Hammett matches wine and food well and has some unusual wines on the list that otherwise might be missed. That location on the balcony and the view are simply, as they say, priceless.

Celebrate the sweet life of Mama Ida Papert.

Don’t plan on showing up at the 17th Annual Hoedown tonight without a ticket. They must be purchased in advance here.

Never been to one? Well, get off your butt and head to at Fair Park’s Food & Fiber Pavilion tonight at 6:30PM. This is a special celebration presented by the Dallas Farmers Market Friends for the Dallas Farmers Market. Not only does it mark the DFM’s 70th, it will also be held as a tribute to one of Dallas’ more dedicated civic servants and the 1991 Founder of the Dallas Farmers Market Friends, Ida Papert, who sadly passed away in January of this year. If that isn’t enough, then here’s a bonus: The Lil’ Blue Pills are playing!

First, a few things to disclose. I talked to Dean Fearing’s about this endeavor because my memory isn’t what it used to be. Second, when you see “Sfuzzi,” it refers to the original, not the current (for the youngsters in the audience). Third, I know there are bound to be errors, too bad. This was the best I could do at 3:30 in the morning. Fourth, I have tried to update locations, but some are questionable, thus the “?”

Remember this chart is the first draft of a larger project. Looking forward to adding more names and connections.

I feel horrible. Mai Phom was Dallas’ primary Vietnamese cuisine evangelist. She opened the city’s first popular Vietnamese restaurant in 1980. The original restaurant in East Dallas still bears her name but she moved to the tiny spot in Snider Plaza where she could be found every day. My former colleague Mary Brown Malouf once wrote:

“Those were the days when ethnic food meant Mexican food, unless it meant Szechuan. Now Vietnamese is practically mainstream and even has at least one almost upscale representative. Mainly, it has become habitual; many of us go out for Vietnamese as often as we go out for Mexican. So it seems strange to me that Mai, who was a pioneer, is now relatively unknown. Her little restaurant in Snider Plaza is practically a secret.”

I tried to reach someone with the restaurant to get a clear picture of what has transpired, but they have already closed and there is no voicemail. If anybody out there has the story, I’d love to know it.

UPPITY DATE: Jiang’s Cuisine has moved.

Inspired by the first two episodes of Ken Burn’s Prohibition on KERA, Amy Severson and I did a little digging into some of the details of what was going on in Dallas before, during, and after prohibition. The third, and final, episode is tonight at 9PM. It’s been a fascinating documentary. Today, we scratch the surface of prohibition in Dallas.

Dripping Dry Dallas. That was the name earned by our city after the repeal of prohibition in 1933.

If you’ve watched the first two episodes of Ken Burn’s historical presentation, Prohibition, our country’s brief love affair with forced sobriety, you already know the national temperance movement came about as a reaction to the despair brought on families affected by alcoholism.

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Prior to the national ban on the production and sale of alcoholic beverages, Dallas already had a strong, well-organized faction fighting to keep Dallas dry. Texas, like Kansas and Maine, joined the movement to ban alcohol way before the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the passing of Volstead Act passed in 1919. In 1897, The Texas Anti-Saloon League, was headquartered in Dallas. Even though it was a provisional committee, it didn’t stop the league from organizing anti-booze rallies until they were officially charted by the national office in 1907. The Texas Anti-Saloon League then paired with the Dallas Central chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Dallas Pastors’ Association, and reached out to African American citizens for their vote. The battle cry– “The Saloon Must Go”—was plastered on banners and posters all over the city.

Cry as they might, there were over 300 saloons in Dallas, approximately 1 for every 100 people. In a Dallas Morning News story printed on September 12, 1926, Historian William S. Adair quoted local resident George Cretien’s observations of the city: “Dallas was as quiet, law-abiding a community, as could be desired, until outsiders began to pour in in anticipation of the railroads, which were heading this way. Then, it began to fill up with saloons, gamblers and dance halls, wild men and wilder women.”

Saloons were plentiful and local alcohol manufacturers controlled the distribution, sometimes using nefarious techniques to specialize their particular drink over others. In order to gain competitive advantage, saloons would “enhance” barrels of whiskey with more potent products (tobacco, laudanum) to ensure a “regular” stream of business.

While the success of the Texas Anti-Saloon League endeavors varied county-by-county, there is little doubt about their strength in Dallas. They called for a local option election and Dallas County was completely dry in 1917, two years before the national ban. Even though Dallas Mayor Joe E. Lawther opposed the measure, the “Drys” brilliantly tied the issue to World War I, urging its passage as a moral stance on the war. The vote passed and Dallas remained dry until the passage of the 21st amendment in 1933. Locals rejoiced and thought it would be easier to get a drink in Dallas. But the new Mayor, George W. Sergeant, Sr., was also deacon of the Presbyterian Church and an Anti-Saloon League board member. So the behind-the-scenes drinking continued.

The final episode of Prohibition is on KERA, channel 13, tonight at 9PM. You can catch re-runs of the first two starting at 7PM. Or you can watch them online.

“What came next?” You might wonder? Well watch Part III on KERA tonight and drink it all in.

In 1992, Renie Steves, a food and wine writer in Fort Worth, wrote a book called Dallas is Cooking. In the forward, Caroline Rose Hunt reminisces about the Golden Pheasant. “The steaks served at the Golden Pheasant located on Commerce between the Adolphus and Neiman Marcus were the best in town. A stuffed Chinese golden pheasant looked down on the diners, many who came fro out of the city to engage in the booming oil business.”

This week, Amy Severson and I continue our History of Dallas Food series on SideDish with a look at The Golden Pheasant, a French restaurant known for their sizzling steak platters. If you would like to take a look back at some of our earlier reports, here are the links: La Tunisia, Ida Chitwood. and Eltee O. Dave.

The Golden Pheasant Restaurant was a Dallas institution for over 45 years. If its story were a play, it would be a tragedy filled with mobsters, mysterious murders, and fires. The opulent restaurant opened in 1915 and operated under four different owners in four locations until it burned to the ground in 1964 and left four firemen dead. The last location was in the grassy lot which now sits next to the valet stand at the Magnolia Hotel. The fountain behind the hotel is a silent memorial of what was, even to this day, the worst loss in the history of the Dallas Fire Department.

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Very little is known about Mr. and Mrs. William Levey, the original owners who moved the restaurant from the first location on Ervay Street to 1404 ½ Main Street. Sometime around 1924, the Golden Pheasant moved to its third location at 1509 Commerce (now part of valet lot beside Neiman Marcus.). In 1928, the Golden Pheasant was sold to Paul Bathias, a popular maitre’d at The Adolphus and manager of The City Club. Nobody knows how he did it, but somehow Bathias produced $10,000 during the Depression and moved The Golden Pheasant to its final location, a two-story building at 1417 Commerce Street. Bathias opened the doors on December 31, 1931.

The interior was grand. There were heavy metal trimmed doors inlaid with bright stained glass pheasants. The vivid yellow awnings in front could be seen from far away and a sign above the doors advertised the restaurant had “a new cooling system to keep them comfortable.” Two large stuffed pheasants mounted atop tall pillars greeted guests in the foyer. Inside, the restaurant was long and narrow with small private alcoves on the side. A staircase in the back for the room led up to a mezzanine.

In 1940, Bathias sold the restaurant to Al Badger who was once the manager of the Dallas Country Club. Badger and his wife Bessie oversaw the day-to-day operations. Eventually they brought their son Al Jr. and his family back to Dallas to help them. Their grandson Al Badger, III has lived in Dallas almost all his life and is now an attorney here. His family lived on Bryn Mawr and Al III remembers going downtown to visit his grandparents’ restaurant. “I considered myself the head of quality control there,” he chuckled as he remembered his childhood. “We would ride the bus downtown as kids, and then catch the trolley across to the movies. Back then they had four theaters. Other than that there was no other place to go except for a couple of grocery stores and a few restaurants like Youngblood’s.”

Al III remembers a few of the waiters: “Uncle” John, Clarence Jones, and Willie Jackson. Many of the servers spent their entire careers working at the Golden Pheasant. “There was a woman cook named Nannie Bell who made a cottage cheese pie,” Al III said, “It was made of cottage cheese and pecans, and it was sweet tasting.” Grocers like Hunt’s sold the restaurant’s salad dressing used in the “famed” Golden Pheasant salad which included hearts of lettuce, hard boiled eggs, and Roquefort cheese. “The dressing was like a French dressing,” Al III said.

By the early ‘60s, the dining climate had changed downtown. New swanky hotels such as the Statler-Hilton offered Dallas a sleek version of the Las Vegas rat pack scene. To keep up, other downtown hotels renovated their dining rooms to keep their guests from wandering off the property. Retail and movie theaters began moving out of downtown and up to Preston Center and NorthPark. The Golden Pheasant changed hands once more in 1962. New owner Charles Darrell Bryant didn’t do so well with the business. When he experienced a dip in sales, he changed the name to the Pheasant Café.

The first alarm alerted the fire station at 2:33 in the morning of February 16, 1964. Within two hours, the blaze was five alarms and over 750 firemen fought the two-story flames. Four Dallas firefighters lost their lives when they were crushed when the basement of the Golden Pheasant collapsed. It took rescue workers over nine hours to dig the bodies out and when it was all over, only a sooty yellow awning remained.

The loss of The Golden Pheasant occurred less than three months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald by club owner Jack Ruby. Rumors of a dark Dallas underworld filled mob connections and shady nightclub owners became international news. The city decided to get tough on crime and they looked into the suspicious fire at The Golden Pheasant. They were well aware of the fact Mr. Bryant was the owner of the Copper Cow, another restaurant which had burned to the ground in 1960.

Henry Wade, Dallas District Attorney, tried to charge Charles Bryant with “murder by malice” in the deaths of the fire fighters. It was a new, risky, and hard-to-prove accusation. Ultimately the DA’s office reduced the Bryant charge to arson. The prosecution failed to make their case even with compelling evidence: a fiscal business loss with an awaiting $70,000 insurance policy; a mysterious identical fire found by an early arriving employee the day before; and testimony by a cook that Mr. Bryant offered him $1,000 a month before to burn the restaurant down. The jury was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt.

However, trouble plagued Mr. Bryant after the trial. The insurance company refused to pay the policy due to suspicious circumstances. Bryant sued but he lost the case. He was also part of state probe into his involvement in vending company and liquor-license financing. Bryant was also a suspect in the car bombing of Phil Hodges, owner of the Best Place Café, a man the Dallas Morning News reported as a “known gambling figure.” The police told the paper the case was closed a few years later when a witness came forward and confirmed Bryant’s involvement.

The last evening anyone saw Bryant alive he was with Bobby Wayne Vandiver, a suspected mob hit man who’d skipped bail in Houston a month where he was arrested for murder. The next morning Bryant was found in his car in east Dallas with two bullets in his head. During the trial, a witness confirmed Bobby Wayne had killed Bryant while the two were fighting over a case of dynamite. Two months later, Bobby Wayne would die in a shoot-out with Longview police while dining in a restaurant.

Many people like Caroline Rose Hunt have fond memories of dining at The Golden Pheasant. And many more mourned the loss of the the fallen heroes of the Dallas Fire Department: James Gresham (age 25), Ronald Manley (27), Jerry Henderson (29), and James Bingham (36).

[Ed note: Many thanks to Al Badger III for his help in telling this story.]



“We are so grateful for Desperados Mexican Restaurants’ commitment to help us end hunger. Their donation of food and funds could not come at a better time, since September is Hunger Action Month,” said Jan Pruitt, president and CEO of the North Texas Food Bank. “Through the Desperados Mexican Restaurants’ campaign, we expect to provide access to 35,000 nutritious meals to children, families and senior citizens in our community.”

“Our restaurant is more than just a business. My sons and I have built long-lasting relationships with our employees and diners. They are like family to us. The Say Adios to Hunger and Stuff the Catering Van campaign with the NTFB will allow us to give back to our community in a meaningful way. We can join one of the nation’s largest charities in its effort to wipe out hunger and celebrate with our community at the same time,” said Levy.

Photo of Dave's Barbecue in Elm Thicket courtesy of Dallas Public Library.

Last summer, Amy Severson, co-owner of Sevy’s, blogger, and all-around smart person, and I had what we thought was a great idea. We decided to write a book on the history of Dallas food. We began collecting bits and pieces of information and interviewed grandchildren of long-lost Dallas restaurants and food businesses. What we have found is unique and amazing and over the next few months, we will post some of the discoveries .In Part 1, we wrote about La Tunisia. Part 2  profiled Mrs. Ida Chitwood . Today we present the Legend of Eltee O. Dave.

We all know the story of Dallas barbecue giant Sonny Bryan, but very little has been written about Dallas’ successful pitmaster Eltee O. Dave. When the 12-year Dave rode his bike from Grimes County (between College Station and Houston) to Dallas in 1915, he had no idea he would become a successful African American in the 1940s. Many old-timers consider him to be Dallas’ first home-grown African American millionaire.

Jump.Dave probably would have called his success hard work, because it never came easily to him. He spent many years working as a chauffeur and handyman for A. C. Ebie, a powerful Dallas businessman and General Manager of Magnolia Petroleum Company. Dave saved the money he made and used his earnings to purchase a 204-acre farm in Carrollton in the 1930s. When Mr. Ebie died in 1938, he left Dave and his wife Betty $1,000. In 1940, they used the money to purchase several properties in the Elm Thicket neighborhood of Dallas, was located on the eastern edge of Love Airfield, a single runway at the time.

Elm Thicket was a tough area that ran from south from Mockingbird to Northwest Highway. During the late 20s, it was a shanty town known for its stills and bootleggers during prohibition. Most of the houses didn’t have indoor plumbing and electricity and well water caused many outbreaks of typhoid in 1934. By the early 1940s Elm Thicket had morphed into a mixed race, working class combination of houses, shacks, and Quonset huts. On one of his properties, Dave built Dave’s Barbecue, a restaurant that served “blacks only.” As the popularity of his meats grew he served take-out to the white workers who were expanding Love Field to accommodate the growth from WWII and the increase in commercial airline traffic. At the same time, Highland Park was swelling to the east and the current Bluffview neighborhood was also pushing the black residents out of Elm Thicket. But Eltee Dave didn’t budge. Instead he smartly expanded the restaurant by adding a “whites only” dining room.

“As a boy I would take a little green bowl to the back door of the barbecue joint and pass it through to Dave so that he could put $2 worth of meat in the bowl,” Jesse Graves, a former resident of Elm Thicket remembers. “It was the best barbecue that I have ever eaten.”  By this time, Dave had expanded his business to include several rent houses, a motel, a service station, and a wood yard where residents bought wood to cook with. Dave was the largest land owner in the area.

Which became a huge problem for the city of Dallas when they decided to expand Love Field and move Lemmon Avenue to the east. Dave was given two choices: sell, or face condemnation. In 1955, he settled on a payment of $125,525 for all of his properties and businesses.

The exact details of what Dave did over the next twenty years are sketchy. However, we know he built at least four barbecue restaurants, all named Dave’s Place. Dave worked in the kitchen of his Westmoreland location. He “rented out” the other three, an early and inexpensive version of franchising.

A 1975 D Magazine ran a review of Dave’s noted, “He putters around his bricked smoke-pit room in a white chefs uniform (complete with tall rumpled chef’s hat) as surely and dapperly as if he were manning the soufflés at the Pyramid Room.” By this time, Dave also owned three ranches, one of which was a 192-acre cattle farm at the edge of Lou Foote airfield in Grand Prairie. By 1965 the land was encircled by housing developments. The tag of “Dallas’ first black millionaire” was attached to his name.

Eltee Dave died doing what he loved. He did not have to work, but on November 14, 1976 he was in the kitchen of the restaurant when he heard commotion in the front dining room. He walked out to investigate was shot in the head by a suspected heroin addict. The thief took $30 from the cash register but missed the $1,200 in Dave’s pocket. The killer was eventually caught and sent to prison but the damage was done. All of Dave’s restaurants disappeared. (The Dave’s BBQ in South Dallas today is not related to Eltee Dave).

What happened to his holdings and his money? We haven’t found a clear answer. We contacted his granddaughter Alexandria Dave, who was an infant when he was killed, and she didn’t have any details. But we’re still looking.

[Pictures of the original and expanded restaurant exist in the Dallas library archives.]

You all know Casey, Tre, Lisa, and Tiffany. But do you know Ida?

Mrs. Ida Mae Chitwood (nee Keener) was Dallas’ first “super star” food personality. A pioneer in Texas and across the nation, her free cooking demonstrations were attended by hundreds of thousands of women from Albuquerque to Syracuse, New York. She made headlines wherever she went. “Thousands hear Mrs. Ida Chitwood Lecture” ran across the top of the San Antonio Light on February 2, 1929. On November 17, 1933, the Chicago Daily Tribune exclaimed “Five Thousand Women of the West Side Yesterday Heard Mrs. Ida M. Chitwood.” The Chicago Tribune reported “Sophie Tucker of the Stage gets a few pointers from Mrs. Ida M. Chitwood” on November 22, 1934. Even after her popularity during the 1920s, ‘30s, and ‘40s, she’s almost been forgotten in the history of Dallas food.

Ida was born in Tennessee in 1885, the fifth of ten children. The family relocated to Ector, Texas when her father, who worked for the railroad, was transferred. Ida could have had a quiet, life as a housewife and mother. In 1908, at age 23, she married farmer Loren Chitwood and they had baby girl who they named Christeen. But Loren was killed when the mule he was riding ran into a barb-wire fence and his throat was cut when the mule tried to pull away.  The mule returned home without him. Christeen was only 10 months old.

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It was impossible for Ida to make the farm sustainable on her own. She and Christeen moved back in with her family, but after her mother’s sudden death the family moved to Clarendon, Texas near Amarillo.

But not for long. She continued to search for a better life for herself and her daughter. She packed up and bravely moved back to Tennessee where she found her future. The family story says Ida, who didn’t have a certificate of high school graduation, “fibbed” her way into George Peabody School for Teachers (now part of Vanderbilt University). The registrar of the school confirmed that she was enrolled for one semester in the fall of 1917 in the Home Economics program. On the recommendation of one of her teachers, Ida was recruited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture where she was trained and consequently certified in December 1918 as a Home Demonstration Agent.

With certificate in hand, Ida and Christeen returned to Clarendon and Ida became the Home Demonstration Agent for Donley County. Her job duties included traveling the surrounding countryside teaching household skills such as safe canning techniques, how to cook with the new gas ranges that were quickly replacing wood stoves, and personal nutrition. She drove around the surrounding counties by herself. In 1921 she was run over by her own car. She was cranking the engine handle when the car jumped forward and knocked her over. Obviously, this was not an easy job for a single mother, but, car wrecks aside, it allowed Ida to raise her daughter in a secure home.

Ida Chitwood's grandson, Joe Luther Jr. holding his mom's (Christeen) pass for the Texas Centennial Exhibit. (photo by Amy Severson.)

By 1923 she was the Home Demonstration Agent for Tom Greene County (San Angelo), where, according to family lore, she met Houston Harte, the publisher of the local paper. He urged her to take her cooking show on the road. Within a year she took his advice. Chitwood’s family also believes Harte taught her a bit about product placement.  As her classes spread to San Antonio, Amarillo, and Houston, ads featuring the products personally endorsed by Ida, filled the local newspapers. She was building a brand.

Her traveling show was not without its challenges. “Consider the skills it took for Ida to demonstrate before crowds of this size,” says Chitwood’s great-niece Theola Baker. “There were no projectors or big screens or JumboTrons like we’re used to now. All she really had to connect with her audience was a microphone and her personality. Outside of the first few rows on front, no one could have actually seen what she was doing onstage. Like old-time radio sportscasters, Ida had to create visual images in the audience’s mind of the onstage action and whatever dish she was whipping up.”

During the Great Depression, Ida’s shows opened with musical acts including Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Paul Whiteman, and Guy Lombardo. Not only did these bands open for her, they played during intermission.  “My mother [Christeen] would tell me those bands were glad to get the work during the depression,” says Chitwood’s grandson Joe Luther, Jr. “There were door prizes and gift bags of free ingredients and usually a local newspaper was the named sponsor of the class, bringing the advertising revenue of the products to their pages.”

Ida and Christeen moved Westminster Avenue in to University Park in the late ’20s and Christeen enrolled at SMU where she received a degree in home economics in 1931. Post-graduation Christeen tried  following in her mother’s footsteps by conducting Chitwood Cooking Classes in Amarillo and San Diego, but she returned to Dallas in 1932 and married attorney/Deputy Sheriff Joe Bailey Luther, whose father ran the city’s municipal farm along White Rock Lake.

By the mid-1930s Ida was nationally recognized. She’d published her first hard bound cookbook, Ida M. Chitwood’s Choice Recipes (Bunker Press, Fort Worth, 1927), and the corporate office for her cooking school was in the Chrysler Building in Manhattan. She traveled from show to show in a customized rail car that held her equipment, supplies, and office. Why she left her traveling cooking show is still a mystery. Some have speculated that the Depression had dried up attendees while others have suggested that the wear and tear of a life spent on the road was too much for a single woman.

In 1936 a consortium of flour mills in North Texas enticed Ida to return to Dallas to run the Burrus Mill exhibit at the Texas Centennial World Fair. Ida parked her rail car at Fair Park and taught modern cooking techniques in the building modeled after a century old flour mill. The exhibit was just as popular for the fresh, hot biscuits Ida gave away. The building, which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, is currently  The Old Mill Restaurant. The walls are decorated with relics from the building’s history. Right after the Texas Centennial, Ida wrote wrote her second cookbook, The Centennial Cook Book, published by Southern Laboratory Kitchens (Dallas, 1936).

The Chitwood Cooking School continued for many years operating out of the Marvin Building in downtown Dallas and Ida’s did a weekly cooking show on KRLD radio. She lived in Dallas until she passed away in 1971. She had been out of the spotlight for many years. Her brief obituary neglected to mention the many places and people Ida Chitwood had touched in her life. Ida rests next to her husband Loren and daughter Christeen in the Chitwood family plot in Hampton Cemetery in Bonham, Texas.

Editor’s Note:

Many thanks to Ida’s grandchildren, Joe Luther, Jr. and Prudie Luther Orr, and her great niece, Theola Keener Baker for inviting Amy to their family reunion in Bonham and for sharing such personal memories.

Photo of postcard from La Tunisia in Dallas.

Last summer, Amy Severson, co-owner of Sevy’s, blogger, and all-around smart person, and I  had what we thought was a great idea. We decided to write a book on the history of Dallas food. We did a zillion searches and couldn’t come up with one book that covered the subject. We began collecting bits and pieces of information. Amy spent days at the library researching anything related to the restaurant or food business in the  Dallas area. She has interviewed grandchildren of long-lost Dallas restaurants and food businesses. What we have found is unique and amazing and over the next few months, we will post some of the discoveries.

Today, we start with our History of Dallas Food series with La Tunisia, an opulent restaurant that opened in 1959. My grandfather used to take me to La Tunisia for special occasions. Do you have memories of La Tunisia? I thought they moved to Preston Royal, but Amy has traced it to McKinney Avenue. However, we did find postcards and a menu which I’ve photographed and posted below the jump. Here’s our report:

There was a time in history when the term “middle eastern conflict” referred to the weekly disagreement between Jeannie and Major Anthony Nelson.

Jump, please.

The Skeik's Tent cocktail lounge at La Tunisia in Dallas.

In the early 1960’s Dallas had its own vision of the sultan’s life in a restaurant called La Tunisia.  Like the television show, it was a highly caricatured endeavor, its menu encompassing a wide swath of ethnicities from India to Africa. The 7-foot African-American man wearing a tall fez stood outside of the landscaped front door. He dramatically opened the doors to reveal a stunningly elaborate tented cocktail lounge called The Sheik’s Tent where, as the copy on the back of the menu reads, “Veiled waitresses dressed as harem girls serve cocktails.”  The space was designed and decorated by the creators of Disneyland. The ceiling draped with hand woven cloth and gave the room the feeling of dining in a great tent on the North African dessert.

The main dining room—The Pioneer Room—integrated the meeting of Texas and North Africa with its “common element of extensive cattle raising and ranching” theme. (Sorry, can’t find a picture.)  The lighting system was way ahead of its time—the fixtures created a 24-hour light cycle.

La Tunisia was built in 1959 in a 140-acre development off of Harry Hines called Exchange Park. It was located next to the 32-lane Mickey Mantle Bowling Center. The owner, James F. Riggs was a Mesquite developer as well as restaurateur, he opened another restaurant, the London House in NorthPark in 1961. ( The London House’s first chef was a young man named Ewald Scholz, who would go on to be a famous Dallas chef).  Managers included Jackson Reynolds and Eddie Southern. A former host Iqbal “Ike” Singh Ekhon left the restaurant after seven years to open Rajah’s Custom Clothiers at Hillcrest and Northwest Highway. Ike, who remained a resident in Dallas, passed away in 2006.

By the late ‘60’s, the nomadic Dallas social scene at La Tunisia had packed up their camels and moved on and, by June 1972, the restaurant reopened as Arthur’s West, a steakhouse sibling to the original Arthur’s on McKinney.

Closed menu from La Tunisia in Dallas.