Homegrown Hits

these restaurants have Dallas roots, and now they’re sprouting all over the map.

Café Brazil

cafebrazil.com first restaurant Lakewood (now demolished), December 1991 total restaurants 10 in our neigHBorHooD Lower Greenville, Greenville and Goodwin; Deep Ellum, Elm and Malcolm X; University Park, University and 75 Company pHilosopHy “History has shown we’ve been successful in taking over previous restaurant locations,” Café Brazil CEO Brant Wood says. “I think people feel more comfortable in established buildings in established neighborhoods.” This means the layout varies from one location to the next, with each restaurant featuring local artists’ work in urban locations and schoolchildren’s art in suburban locations. Menus, however, are the same across the board. “Most restaurants are open for two meals,” Wood says. “We’re open breakfast, lunch, dinner and late nights, and we have a broad menu to meet the needs of both the suburban housewife and urban late night fans.” e xpansion plans The most recent Café Brazil opened in Oak Cliff in July 2008, right as the recession hit. The company hasn’t opened any other locations since then, but “never stopped looking,” Wood says. Most of its current requests for new locations are coming from Fort Worth and Denton, and Café Brazil is interested in spots near college campuses because its existing locations near colleges perform well. Most Café Brazil restaurants are in the city of Dallas, so any future Dallas locations “would have to be more strategic, but I certainly wouldn’t say that we’re finished.” The company’s eventual goal is to take the concept outside DallasFort Worth to growing fan bases in Austin, Houston or Oklahoma City — “people within a Southwest Airlines flight of here,” Wood says.

Homegrown Hits

These restaurants have Dallas roots, and now they’re sprouting all over the map.

BURGERHOUSE burgerhouse.com

FIRST RESTAURANT Snider Plaza in 1951

TOTAL RESTAURANTS Seven; four companyowned and three franchisees (plus one coming soon in Lubbock)

IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD Coit and Campbell; Marsh and Spring Valley

COMPANY PHILOSOPHY Burger House likes to “attach ourselves to a neighborhood and really become immersed in that neighborhood,” partner Chris Canellos says. “It really plays well for longevity.” The restaurant spends ample energy connecting to neighborhood schools and donating to school causes — “$60,000 to $75,000 a year,” Canellos figures. “We really don’t say no to a lot of people. Sometimes you have to because it’s a business, but we go overboard to build loyalty with schools.” This also helps because “the parents generally eat where the kids want to go,” he says.

EXPANSION PLANS Burger House is in expansion mode, riding the wave of burger popularity. “The two hottest segments in the market are tacos and burgers,” Canellos says. “Four years ago, it was wings and coffee. It’s just an evolution. Four years from now it might be something else.” Franchisees are a recent addition to the company, and Canellos guesses Burger House will open a couple more franchises outside of Dallas over the next two years, plus “maybe one or two more that we own and operate inside Dallas.” He is finding ample opportunities to move in where other restaurants have failed. “People have found out that the restaurant business is a carnage business,” Canellos says. Burger House will scope out locations “close to a business corridor but nestled in a neighborhood to pull business lunch, but also pull the soccer mom, and at nighttime it’s strictly a family deal,” he says. “It’s kind of a utopian location. There’s not a lot of them out there.”