Old East Dallas coffee shop and cafe Killer Joe is only a year old but feels like it has been around much longer.
Photography by Lauren Allen
Photography by Lauren Allen
Photography by Lauren Allen
Photography by Lauren Allen
With rock music playing inside, Killer Joe could probably fit in well in Deep Ellum or Lower Greenville but also isn’t out of place on the corner of Fitzhugh and Columbia Avenues. The small dining room features are rustic and minimal — wooden table tops, a concrete floor, seating that looks lived in. Major colors are black and orange, which is fitting since its grand opening was around Halloween last year.
Being a community hub is a focal point and an intention from owners Christine Sweet and Christian Napolitano. Sweet notices customers talking to each other even though they didn’t come to Killer Joe together.
The music plays loud enough to be heard but not so loud that you can’t have a basic conversation. The tunes may characterize Killer Joe as a place for punks and toughs, but the staff and some of the other customers are friendly.
The owners have catered for neighborhood teachers and hosted Coffee with Cops as well as events with local vendors, Sweet says. They’re planning an anniversary celebration called Killer Fest this month.
“(The neighborhood) just needed something that you can come to on a daily basis, on your way of commuting, and help connect the intersections between Lakewood and Lower Greenville and Deep Ellum and Downtown communities together,” she says.
Since opening, loyal customers have been inspired to get Killer Joe tattoos. The cafe serves everyone from “retirees to young single mothers to attorneys to artists,” Sweet says.
“We’ve even started seeing people from Fort Worth and Plano drive down here, like 60, 70-year-olds rocking to the music,” Napolitano says. “That was kind of surprising to us.”
Sweet and Napolitano have been brainstorming hospitality concepts together for years. They met while working at the fine dining Lebanese restaurant ilili in New York City over a decade ago and are married today. Napolitano, a native New Yorker, learned all he could from his uncle who owned diners all over Manhattan. In his 20s, he continued working in restaurants and eventually graduated to management. He also previously opened Los Angeles concepts and ran Restaurant DeGolyer at the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden.
Napolitano specifically remembers his uncle holding the door for customers walking in his establishments. Though he was the owner, that job wasn’t beneath him.
“I try to bring that to Killer Joe, holding the door for the customers, bringing food out to them, picking up the plates, asking them how everything is, welcoming them when they come in, making sure they get all their food, or if they’re waiting on something, checking in with them,” Napolitano says. “I care about that stuff because they’re coming to spend money; they’re coming to have a good time. So I want to give them that. I want to give them a sort of respite from the daily grind of life.”
Meanwhile, Sweet has worked in brand and product development and destination marketing, most notably for Visit Dubai. Her knowledge of food and flavors — which eventually helped her develop the Killer Joe menu — comes from her family members with roots in Italy, Finland, South Africa and France.
“I love culture, and culture is kind of rooted at the table first,” Sweet says.
Initially, Sweet and Napolitano wanted to open a “punk rock taco shop” in New York, but the pandemic put a damper on their plan. When Sweet’s stepfather in Lake Highlands passed away unexpectedly around 2022, they came to Dallas. Noticing our city’s vibrancy, they decided to open their New York-inspired concept here.
Establishing Killer Joe has been a labor of love with emphasis on the labor. Finding the space took over a year because property owners wouldn’t take a chance on Sweet and Napolitano. They opened their cafe without loans, family money or outside investors. Both of them were working other full-time jobs, with Sweet also clocking in on the weekends.
“When we opened last year, my customers would see me here every day opening and closing the shop and say, ‘Oh, this must be really hard.’ It’s like, ‘You don’t understand how hard it was to get to this point. This is the reward,’” Sweet says. “I’ve been working every single day for the last two years to get to this point.”
Napolitano says Killer Joe isn’t just a coffee shop, and the cafe’s food is made with fresh ingredients, like real eggs, and housemade sauces.
Sweet adds that the microgreens are grown locally, and breakfast is served all day. She describes the menu, which has vegan and gluten-free options, as approachable and familiar with an added twist of international flavors. Lunch paninis include the K-Pop Cuban ($13) that pairs applewood smoked ham and provolone cheese with kimchi pickles and wasabi mayo.
The Birria Panini ($15), originally featured on the summer specials menu, “is like a birria taco in a panini form,” Napolitano says. He’s not wrong. The crispy panini combines salt and pepper steak with roasted tomatillo salsa and pico de gallo.
One of the breakfast offerings is The Ladybird ($12), your basic croissant sandwich with scrambled eggs, bacon and smoked onion jam but with seared pear for a touch of sweetness and blue cheese for a twist.
And as the name suggests, Killer Joe does brew cups of joe in addition to tea and matcha. For those who prefer sweeter coffee, there’s the French Toast Latte ($7-$7.75) that is made with organic espresso, Vermont maple syrup, organic cinnamon syrup, fresh cinnamon and your choice of milk.
The owners plan to extend their hours and start serving beer, wine and new menu items. They are also working on establishing a New York-style pizza restaurant with a walk-up window and speakeasy cocktail bar near the intersection of Main Street and Carroll Avenue in the coming months.
Sweet and Napolitano also want to open an East Dallas bar and small dumpling kitchen with a walk-up window.
In her previous jobs, Sweet had to dress formally, but she’s now free to be herself by “playing the Ramones, wearing jeans and Converse.”
Perhaps this sentiment seeps into the vibe at Killer Joe. Customers sometimes sing along to the music, and their children will dance to it.
Sweet says, “We might be playing System of a Down, but everybody is happy and jamming together.”
Killer Joe, 108 N. Fitzhugh Ave., 214.377.9334, killerjoetx.com
