Dodie’s, the Lower Greenville Cajun food spot, has signed a lease for a 3,000-square-foot space in the landmark Lower Greenville building that was damaged in a four-alarm fire in March.
Plumbing work starts next week on the 1931 building in the 2800 block of Greenville, which had housed Terilli’s, Mick’s, Greenville Bar and Grill, and Hurricane Grill. Business owners are hoping to open before the Super Bowl, Feb. 6, says Dodie’s owner Chris McGuinness.
Terilli’s is reopening in the same location, and Dodie’s is taking the former Hurricane Grill space. Greenville Bar and Grill is unlikely to come back, McGuinness says.
But he is going in with partners to open an asian fusion restaurant, which has a stylized name: (Rōhst). The chef owns a Korean restaurant in Dallas, and he is planning a menu that “is like a Korean Houston’s“, McGuinness says.
All three spaces will have roofdecks, he said.
“It’s going to be hip, trendy, cool,” he says. “We want to bring some of the business from Henderson over here to Greenville.”
The original Dodie’s will stay open for at least six months after the new place, Dodie’s Reef, opens. The original Dodie’s opened 20 years ago and became popular especially for its Cajun tamales. Since then, it has expanded to a chain of six restaurants in the Dallas area.
Dodie’s Reef will serve a similar menu, but more upscale.
McGuinness says the new space is one he always coveted — it’s where he originally wanted to put Dodie’s, and he settled for the location at Greenville and Richmond, which turned out to be terrific, he says.
“We have a lot of history there. It’s hard to just leave it,” he says.
McGuinness expects all three restaurants to open in the same week early next year.
