When Madison King crooned, “Nobody wants to take chances anymore” on her 2014 album, she most certainly wasn’t talking about herself.
Photography by Tanner Garza
Photography by Tanner Garza
Photography by Tanner Garza
The Casa View neighbor will tell you that she’s been lucky to have “followed (her) whims” — being a country music singer-songwriter and a chef.
The 38-year-old Lake Highlands native started playing guitar at age 8, writing songs as a teenager and performing around age 19 or 20. She released a few records, but eventually, it became clear that King wouldn’t make it to the music big leagues without moving to Nashville or going viral on YouTube, and she was not interested in either of those options.
So, she taught herself how to cook. She began working at the private supper club Frank Underground in 2017 and launched MunchBox (customizable snack boards) in 2022. Her music career had always been accompanied by service work, including at Capitol Pub, City Tavern and Twilite Lounge.
Last November, she did something she’s wanted to do for a long time — open up her own restaurant called Be Home Soon in Casa Linda Plaza, which King referred to as her “dream spot” because of its size and distance from her residence.
King co-owns the eatery with her business partner and accounting mastermind Russ Kirk. She operates the kitchen with fellow chef Joey Fink, and her longtime friend Pablo Rivera runs the front of the house.
The menu is divided between snacks, lunch, dinner, brunch and drinks, and the main courses are updated weekly. You can order snacks and drinks throughout Be Home Soon’s operating hours, but lunch is only served between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Likewise, you can only get dinner from 5 to 9 p.m.
The offerings are pragmatic. Snacks are variations on chips and dip — kettle chips and onion dip, crudite and green goddess, and focaccia and garlic hummus, all $9. The drinks menu encompasses familiar cocktails as well as beer, wine and sodas. Salads are available for lunch and dinner, and the former’s menu includes sandwiches. The Sunday brunch menu dances between sweet and savory flavors with chocolate chip focaccia French toast listed alongside buttermilk biscuits and gravy.
In contrast, dinner is more varied. You can get a poached chicken vermicelli bowl with a house egg roll in one week and BBQ pork ribs the next week.
The design inside Be Home Soon is striking. At the entryway, there’s a peachy partial wall with retro decorative concrete blocks and a pale blue cityscape mural in the dining room. Accents of royal purple adorn chairs and the wall, which has various pieces of art hanging from it, leading to the bathrooms.
Who would create a restaurant with such a funky aura? Madison King, of course. The singer-songwriter-turned-restaurateur recently told us about her vision.
What was your inspiration for the vibe in Be Home Soon as well as the food on the menu?
Well, I kept saying that I wanted it to feel like a 24-hour diner in 1970s Tokyo, and I feel like it does, which I love. It was all about being an inclusive space where everyone feels welcome, where you feel like you’re walking into somebody’s house when you walk in the door, and you’re welcome there. We don’t want it to feel stuffy. That is very much my philosophy. I always like to try to make people feel good, not try to impress because if they feel good, they will be impressed.
Why change the menu on a weekly basis, and what inspires those changes?
We have our outline, and then we fill it with different items. So at dinner, it’s kind of like going to dinner at someone’s house. This is what we’re serving. Every week, there’s two mains, four sides and dessert, and then the cornbread, or our bread du jour changes. You don’t have to make decisions. You should just get everything or three of the five things or whatever. This is what to expect, but you really have to come in just kind of being willing to play a little bit.
Tell me about the mural and the pictures on the purple wall. What made these images come together?
So, the purple wall is really a collection of all of us. We all brought stuff up here — me, Russ, Pablo, Joey, my mom, friends. A lot of it came from thrift stores. Eventually, we want to kind of cycle some stuff around. It took me a minute to convince Russ to give me my purple.
When I was scheming with Brittany (Pickle Schmitt of branding and design firm Pickle Schmitt Co.) about the mural design, this was what it was. It was a cityscape because we were talking about a mural the whole time, and I’m like, “I want it to be like a cityscape, but with aliens instead of people. And maybe you kind of recognize different structure types from all over.” And I mean, she just made it up, and there it was. These aliens are our mascots now. They show up on all our branding. I feel like we’re all aliens.
I noticed that Pride Progress flag sticker is posted by the front door. Is it important for you to make this a queer friendly space?
100%. I mean, half our staff is queer, and it’s very important to us. We’ve always worked at inclusive places. Twilite (Lounge) was always that for people. We eventually maybe want to expand and have a gay bar or something like that. That’s very much who we are.
Shifting into culinary from music, do you draw experience from your former career?
This is like being on tour. It’s not nearly as glamorous as it looks. It’s fun for an hour a day, and it makes you so tired and hungover. I’m not drinking right now, but yes, that’s why. We’re performing every night. This is our stage for all of us. It’s our home, and we care about the product we’re putting out. And it’s super similar. People are criticizing it. People are loving it. You’re building fans, and you’re pissing people off. It’s all of that. It’s very similar, similar enough to where I’m playing music again, and I’m probably gonna start performing again because it’s like working those same muscles.
In a 2018 Dallas Observer profile, you were talking about working at Twilite Lounge and people asking you about your music, and you seemed like you resented that question. Is that still something that happens today, or do you still feel the same way about it?
I love that now I’m known for this other thing that’s me now, and that feels really good that people know that I’m doing this thing, and it’s crazy, and we’re very honest about how hard it is, but it’s clearly super rewarding. And everywhere I go, people are proud of me, and they’ve watched my journey, and it’s really cool. I feel very, very fortunate.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Be Home Soon, 9540 Garland Road #407, 214.238.6781, behomesoondallas.com
