At last week’s Greater East Dallas Chamber luncheon, Lincoln Property Co.’s David Lewis confirmed a rumor going around the Lakewood Shopping Center, which Lincoln partially owns: The former Ali Baba space will soon be an upscale barbecue restaurant.
Lewis wouldn’t name the restaurant, explaining that the new tenant doesn’t want to be announced yet, but what can we ascertain from the adjective “upscale”? My husband, a barbecue aficionado, tells me that perhaps Oak Cliff’s Smoke, the Design District’s Oak or even Red, Hot & Blue at Walnut Hill-Central could be considered “upscale,” meaning you sit down at a table, are given silverware and menus, and are waited on by a server. A place like Deep Ellum’s Pecan Lodge, Oak Cliff’s Lockhart or even Dickey’s on Garland Road, where you wait in line, order meat by the pound and receive it in butcher paper, is more of a “joint.”
Then there’s the also-yet-unnamed Austin-style yard restaurant coming soon to Garland Road-Lakeland, also rumored to have barbecue on the menu.
Lewis also noted that Lincoln’s Arboretum Village is close to signing leases with three more restaurants, two that will inhabit the spaces on the east and west ends of the strip center (the latter space is yet to be constructed, and is rumored to become La Madeleine) and one on the grassy field at the property’s southwest corner, known as a “pad site” in real estate jargon. We’ll update as we learn more.
