After working in restaurants and bars for years, four Lakewood residents – Mike and Dana Smith, Simon McDonald and Jennifer Bryan – decided to branch out on their own.

Consider these wines turkeys. Given how difficult it can be to pair wine with Thanksgiving dinner, that’s much more than a bad pun.

If John Wayne was still alive and kickin’ and living in the heart of Lakewood , we think he’d be a regular at Matt’s No Place. The

It’s a difficult wine to make well — and it’s even more difficult to make well and sell for less than $20.

The Lakewood El Chico, near the intersection of Abrams and Gaston, may soon be replaced with a Cantina Laredo.

Skinner opened her first franchise, the McDonald’s at Ross and Greenville, after moving to Dallas in 1989.

Serve these wines well chilled — practically ice cold, if you can find a way.

“Pizza wines are fun, light-bodied, medium wines,” says Harris Polakoff of Pogo’s at Lovers Lane and Inwood.

What the Eustachio family has produced is a place that feels like and is home, both to their diners and to themselves.

Buying a neighborhood restaurant with a 12-year history can be complicated. To last that many years, in Dallas restaurant history, is a long time.