Houston vs. Dallas (fit in, home, quality of life)

[TexasTallest]

Originally Posted by Jack Lance

Are you saying that having "7" new restaurants will overwhelm Houston's restaurant scene with superior numbers?

lol.. how many restaurants are slated to go on Restaurant Row in Hughes Landing? something like 12..

[Dallaz]

Conan's Wikipedia Dallas Song - YouTube

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by Dallaz

Dallas Song -

LOL he knows how to play to a crowd, to bad for him that the only people watching were in Dallas or maybe a few in Fort Worth too. Letterman won the night, bigtime !....

[Nate the Post Hole Digger]

Originally Posted by TexasTallest

lol.. how many restaurants are slated to go on Restaurant Row in Hughes Landing? something like 12..

We aren't talking about quantity as in restaurant rows, but about an incubator of restaurants. Think of this development as more of an extension of Dallas Design District on the other side of the Trinity. There is a lot of wholesale to its concept. The guys developing Trinity Groves have been piecing it together for eight years now. They are investors. Any Chef in the world can submit the name of a hypothetical restaurant along with its menu and samples of the dishes. The investors then choose which restaurants go into the incubator. They supply the space and invest 50% into the restaurants. They then try to franchise them. if the restaurant is a success as a franchise, then the chef gets half. The focus of these restaurants are on millennials.

So, not just any restaurant can go into the district. If someone wants to build their own concept restaurant outside of the district, that is okay. So far, there are sixteen restaurants that have been accepted and a few food stores as well with seven more to be announced in the future. Also in the distant future, other incubated restaurants will be located as street level retail within the numerous residential and hotel high rises expected to be built in the development. The whole development is contained within 80 acres.

So, this isn't a development anchored by a restaurant row, but it is going to be anchored by a kind of a restaurant franchise factory.

The whole idea involved restaurateur Phil Ramano while its overall concept is rather brilliant and original.

By the way, when it comes to restaurant rows and districts, Addison is king. It has over 170 restaurants in very close proximity or, as they like to put it, enough seats in the restaurants for every citizen in the city.

What has always made Houston's upscale restaurant scene better is its superior chefs. In this regard, Trinity Grove is going to undercut that.

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by Nate the Post Hole Digger

We aren't talking about quantity as in restaurant rows, but about an incubator of restaurants. Think of this development as more of an extension of Dallas Design District on the other side of the Trinity. There is a lot of wholesale to its concept. The guys developing Trinity Groves have been piecing it together for eight years now. They are investors. Any Chef in the world can submit the name of a hypothetical restaurant along with its menu and samples of the dishes. The investors then choose which restaurants go into the incubator. They supply the space and invest 50% into the restaurants. They then try to franchise them. if the restaurant is a success as a franchise, then the chef gets half. The focus of these restaurants are on millennials.

So, not just any restaurant can go into the district. If someone wants to build their own concept restaurant outside of the district, that is okay. So far, there are sixteen restaurants that have been accepted and a few food stores as well with seven more to be announced in the future. Also in the distant future, other incubated restaurants will be located as street level retail within the numerous residential and hotel high rises expected to be built in the development. The whole development is contained within 80 acres.

So, this isn't a development anchored by a restaurant row, but it is going to be anchored by a kind of a restaurant franchise factory.

The whole idea involved restaurateur Phil Ramano while its overall concept is rather brilliant and original.

By the way, when it comes to restaurant rows and districts, Addison is king. It has over 170 restaurants in very close proximity or, as they like to put it, enough seats in the restaurants for every citizen in the city.

What has always made Houston's upscale restaurant scene better is its superior chefs. In this regard, Trinity Grove is going to undercut that.

Sounds like assembly line production of restaurants not organic evolution. Houstons restaurant scene was a naturally occurring phenomena, which occurred when the lifestyle of Houstonians demanded more and better dinning options. It was a demand side equation that was not contrived by some board of review. Your Dallas incubator sounds like a Big Brother concept more geared toward mass production of franchises to placate the average consumer, or fodder for another reality show maybe. Real Chefs will never go to an incubator to find their place in the food chain, they create their own space.

If you are serious that you think this project may be a game changer, I believe you are going to be quickly and utterly disappointed....

[Nate the Post Hole Digger]

Originally Posted by Jack Lance

Sounds like assembly line production of restaurants not organic evolution. Houstons restaurant scene was a naturally occurring phenomena, which occurred when the lifestyle of Houstonians demanded more and better dinning options. It was a demand side equation that was not contrived by some board of review. Your Dallas incubator sounds like a Big Brother concept more geared toward mass production of franchises to placate the average consumer, or fodder for another reality show maybe. Real Chefs will never go to an incubator to find their place in the food chain, they create their own space.

If you are serious that you think this project may be a game changer, I believe you are going to be quickly and utterly disappointed....

I did comment that these investors have already been hard at work on the concept for eight years since 2005. You seem to have the idea in your mind that these restaurants are fast food joints with meals cooked upon toy Suzy Homemaker Easy Bake Ovens. These Phil Ramano led investors managed to acquire 80 acres at the western foot of the new Calatrava Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge back when it was still a dream. As I already mentioned, this development is wholesale in concept as it will become more of a cooking design center. The quality is guaranteed because the investors by contract are the ones who determine which restaurants are worthy enough to operate within the district. So, at this point in the production, we aren't even talking about a pricing scale as in upscale, moderate or discount because no one at this point really knows much about the dishes served as they are totally original and experimental.

So, this concept concerns itself more with the business of scale determination. And, as we know from watching the big boys like New York City and Paris, the only thing better than having lots of upscale shopping is being one of the privileged few that get to help in establishing what becomes the scale.

[annie_himself]

Originally Posted by Nate the Post Hole Digger

While North Texas has always been the unquestioned king of retail and wholesale shopping in all the southwest, so too has the Houston area always been known as the king for fine restaurants. With this in mind, will the Trinity Grove development being built west of downtown Dallas help establish North Texas as the premier restaurant capital of the southwest?

The latest article on the development can be found here in today's Dallas Business Journal:

Phil Romano: Trinity Groves has 7 new restaurants in the cooker

Since when? To whom?

Originally Posted by Jack Lance

Sounds like assembly line production of restaurants not organic evolution. Houstons restaurant scene was a naturally occurring phenomena, which occurred when the lifestyle of Houstonians demanded more and better dinning options. It was a demand side equation that was not contrived by some board of review. Your Dallas incubator sounds like a Big Brother concept more geared toward mass production of franchises to placate the average consumer, or fodder for another reality show maybe. Real Chefs will never go to an incubator to find their place in the food chain, they create their own space.

If you are serious that you think this project may be a game changer, I believe you are going to be quickly and utterly disappointed....

Lol and Houston is better?

Don't get me wrong, great places to eat in Houston, hands down, but that's everywhere.
Naturally occurring phenomena, am I missing something? Never once hear about the food in Houston, or it being the king of anything but energy and aerospace. When is Houston not described as a place with chains dominating the landscape? Most people there rave about places like Fogo De Chao, Spaghetti Warehouse, Pappadeaux's, etc.

If your serious that Houston is already a game changer, then ignorance really is bliss.

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by annie_himself

Since when? To whom?

Lol and Houston is better?

Don't get me wrong, great places to eat in Houston, hands down, but that's everywhere.
Naturally occurring phenomena, am I missing something? Never once hear about the food in Houston, or it being the king of anything but energy and aerospace. When is Houston not described as a place with chains dominating the landscape? Most people there rave about places like Fogo De Chao, Spaghetti Warehouse, Pappadeaux's, etc.

If your serious that Houston is already a game changer, then ignorance really is bliss.

Every metro has its chains, I don't see how anybody could expect superior dinning in every corner of any metro. When people talk about Houston's food scene they are talking about the High end restaurants like Pass & Provision, Underbelly ect which are owned by Chefs. That's what Nate was talking about in the post I responded to. Nate was asking an open question as to whether this restaurant incubator would propel the Dallas food scene over Houston's as in being a "game changer"(my term). Nate himself stipulated that Houston's restaurant scene was seen as being above that of DFW's. I didn't describe Houston as being the "King" of anything, where did you get that"? It was Nate who used the term "King" to describe some suburb in DFW. I am talking about Houston vs Dallas not worldwide reputation although I hear Houston has a pretty good international reputation for its restaurants.

[marcopolo2000]

Houston's food and arts scenes are CURRENTLY more known than dallas' but it better not rest on its laurels or else itll get over shadowed.. What ive witnessed is dallas investing ALOT in both scenes recently. look at how dallas' previously non-existent arts district has been advertised to the rest of the country.

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by marcopolo2000

Houston's food and arts scenes are CURRENTLY more known than dallas' but it better not rest on its laurels or else itll get over shadowed.. What ive witnessed is dallas investing ALOT in both scenes recently. look at how dallas' previously non-existent arts district has been advertised to the rest of the country.

I agree a city should never rest on its laurels. Even cities like New York reinvent concepts from time to time. Competition is good and some competition is needed to keep the energy going in both cities.