There’s a new spot for comfort food on Lower Greenville, and it’s healthier than your average greasy spoon. Company Café offers mostly organic and gluten-free menus for breakfast, lunch and dinner, including gluten-free chicken fried steak and chicken and waffles, grass-fed beef short ribs and cage-free omelets. Business partners Stephen White and Chris Cowan have no restaurant experience. Neither has worked in a restaurant before, much less owned one. “We’ve eaten in a lot of restaurants, and we know what we like. We know what we want to serve our children,” White says. The restaurant is at Greenville and Richmond in a renovated former sushi restaurant. They buy as much local and organic food as possible, serving grass-fed beef from Muenster and milk from a North Texas farm. Their bread and baked goods are gluten-free, all except for one or two items that “were too good to pass up,” White says. White’s business background includes stints in the securities and oil and gas businesses. Now he owns two CrossFit gyms. White and Cowan both live in the Park Cities, but they chose Lower Greenville because it’s a location that’s accessible from many parts of town. The restaurant opened April 1, and their second brunch service drew 205 tables. “The neighborhood is really welcoming us,” White says. 214.827.2233, companycafe.net, 2217 Greenville Ave.
Here’s another new place serving “clean” food. Organicity, an organic Greek café, opened recently in the Lakewood Shopping Center, a few doors down from Dixie House. Gino and Olina Nikolini operated Nikolini’s restaurant on McKinney for several years and reopened in our neighborhood this past February, serving organic, slow cooked meats, Greek and vegan cuisine, gyros, salads, coffees, teas, fresh-squeezed juices and house-made sokolata, Greek chocolates. Organicity.com, 214.954.0303.
We didn’t even notice the Winedale Tavern had closed on Lower Greenville. Maybe that’s because it tended to draw a crowd of 20-somethings from the SMU campus, and we hardly noticed the 26-year-old tavern at all. But it has reopened as The Single Wide, a kissin’ cousin to Deep Ellum’s redneck-themed The Double Wide bar. Double Wide owner Kim Finch says she wants The Single Wide to have the same laid-back feel of The Double Wide. We expect velvet paintings, too. 2210 Greenville Ave.
Kathy Hughes, a well-known hairdresser at Medallion Barbers at Abrams and Northwest for more than 30 years, died recently following a battle with cancer. Lake Highlands resident Chad Medaris says he’s sure he speaks for all of her regular customers when he says that will be missed. “She is the only person who has ever cut my son’s hair and she’s cut mine for over 15 years,” he says. “Over the years, I have run into so many people that know and love Kathy… I think you will be surprised at how many lives she has touched.”
The Metro PCS White Rock Marathon recently presented a check for $560,000 to the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. The more than 3,000 participants helped raise the funds which will help the hospital that treats, free of charge, children who need expensive medical procedures. The December 2010 marathon garnered almost $200,000 more than the previous year. Since 1997 when the hospital became the main beneficiary, the race has brought in $1.8 million to Scottish Rite.
Neighborhood fashion designer Carissa Brown, founder of Carissa Rose Bratique Helene (carissarose.com), which specializes in fashions for full-busted women, is a top finalist in the Texas Next Top Designer competition. “Most salespeople have no idea what life is like for full-busted women,” says Brown. That’s why she began in 2008 designing and producing clothes made especially for women with a narrow rib cage (28-40 back size), but with double-D and up sized cups. “When you have this shape, it’s tough to find woven button-up tops that fit and don’t gape, and need constant pulling and tugging and fixing in order to hide your bra.” Since then she has appeared on Homemade Millionaire with Kelly Ripa on TLC. Brown says she started the business as a tribute to her curvaceous mother, Helene Rose, whose motto was: “Stand tall and walk proud”.
The Old Casa Linda Theater is morphing into a health-food store, but the theater marquee and façade will remain. Natural Grocers is now hiring for the new store. Details are available at naturalgrocers.com.
Metro Paws Animal Hospital is expanding. The Lakewood-based vet clinic has purchased a piece of property on Fort Worth Avenue in Oak Cliff with plans to build a new clinic.
