MEAL DEAL

DINING FOUR DOLLARS

JESSICA TURNER Photography by

| RACHEL STONE

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There are cups of coffee that cost close to $10 in Oak Cliff nowadays.

Lunch could easily run you $20, and dinner with drinks practically requires a credit check. But there are still places where a fiver can tide you over. Here are four local restaurants whose hearty $4 menu items are just enough.

BEEF LEGACY Small chopped beef sandwich, $3.99

Chopped beef on a bun is low-key the sandwich of Dallas, with a heritage as relevant as the Baltimore pit beef or a New York City chopped cheese.

Get them from a guy pulling a smoker behind his pickup, out of a festival food truck window or from one of Oak Cliff’s Black-owned barbecue spots.

Odom’s Bar-B-Que in West Dallas has been one since 1968, when it was built as Hardeman’s Barbecue. No one remembers when Hardeman’s first went into business, but Chester Field Hardeman had two restaurants in Dallas by 1948, and there are still two operating in Oak Cliff today. Another branch of the family bought this building and opened Odom’s in 1990, and it’s still run by Belinda Odom Gaston and members of her family.

Odom’s was renovated this past summer after someone in a white F-250 pickup truck backed into the front of the restaurant, while it was closed, in a burglary attempt. The place lost some of its old kitschy charm in the makeover but is now set up for future generations of barbecue eaters.

Odom’s Bar-B-Que, 1971 Singleton Blvd.

AIN’T THAT STUFF ENOUGH Arepas, $4

Beer is great, but it’s not for everyone.

At Manhattan Project Beer Co., that’s just fine.

This West Dallas brewery opens at 7:30 a.m. Monday-Friday for coffee and pastries. A macchiato costs $3.50, and a latte is $4.

Tucked behind the old Jack’s Backyard, with a dog-friendly patio, it features a simple lunch and dinner menu that includes fried chicken — a two-piece costs $4.50 — plus burgers, steaks, salads and cheeseboards.

Arepas are stuffed with black beans with crumbled cheese and avocado, braised pork, smoked salmon, pickled green tomato with white cheddar, or bacon, egg and cheese. Each costs $4.

Other inexpensive snacks on the menu include pork rinds for $4, and Belgiumstyle fries for $5.50.

Manhattan Project Beer Co., 2215 Sulphur St.

COWBOY LIFESTYLE Bowl of beans, $3.99

Here’s one for all the single people.

It’s a cheap, hearty meal that fulfills many dietary requirements, without a lot of calories.

The bowl of beans from Norma’s is a serving of the “beans of the day,” and hear us out.

This is not about the legume. They’re a good source of fiber and will fill you up while providing a vehicle for cornbread. Each order comes with two corn muffins or yeast rolls.

Norma’s Café, 1123 W. Davis St.

GAUCHO HAND PIES Empanadas, $4

Argentinian restaurant Chimichurri recently added lunch service WednesdayFriday, featuring an abbreviated menu and some of the Mexican street tacos that made owner Jesús Carmona famous.

His Tacos Milagro is now open in Trinity Groves.

But empanadas are on the menu at Chimichurri all the time.

The restaurant, in the old Tillman’s Roadhouse space, offers six varieties of handmade stuffed pastries.

Just one is fairly filling, but it’s fun to try them all. Bring extras home to reheat for a savory breakfast treat the next morning.

The varieties are beef, spicy beef, ham and cheese, lamb, mushrooms, and the newest and most popular, chipotle chicken.

Chimichurri Argentinian Bistro and Bar, 324 W. Seventh St.

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If W.K. Jeffus comes knocking at your door, don’t be alarmed. He’s probably there to sell you the history of your house.

Jeffus was born in Oak Cliff, grew up on Wentworth, “over there behind the Tom Thumb,” and is a 1965 graduate of Sunset High School.

The two-story 1912 Victorian home he bought in what is now considered Bishop Arts cost $12,000 in 1971.

It had been divided into six apartments, and he lived in one of them while playing landlord to colorful residents for the first six months.

There’s a construction crane in the sky a few lots over from the house now. That developer pays Jeffus $1,000 a month to rent a nearby empty lot for storing equipment and materials. Boxy apartments and cool modern condos now line the opposite side of 10th Street.

Jeffus remembers the time a two-story brick apartment building had burned down across the street, and he saw a displaced resident drag his bed springs and blankets into the chinaberry tree to sleep there for the night.

This is not the same neighborhood it was back then.

“It’s certainly changed a lot,” he says. “I guess for the better, except that the taxes are higher than a cat’s back.”

Jeffus lives in DeSoto now, and the house on 10th Street is where he stores the trappings of his

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W.K. Jeffus is an old-school dealer

W.K. Jeffus organizes his vast archive of newspaper pages by “route,” that is, they correspond to points on the map so he can put a few stacks in the trunk and drive around looking for customers.

trade. He calls it “the house of history.”

People solicit to buy his house all the time, but he’s not selling.

“I don’t want to sell it,” he says. “Nobody has named a price, but I’m not interested in a price.”

Inside, stacks of newspaper pages are piled on tables or leaned against walls or dusty furniture that was stored here long ago. Jeffus archives each page on cardboard and plastic sheeting, which he salvages from a Jefferson Boulevard mattress store and cuts to size with a razor blade knife.

It’s hard to believe any of this stuff is organized, but Jeffus has a system. He organizes everything by “route,” that is, they correspond to places on the map. He can put a few piles in his trunk and drive around looking for buyers on that route.

He keeps his eye out for renovated commercial buildings or homes all over Dallas whose new owners and tenants could be his next customers.

The esoteric Dallas ephemera he might try to sell you likely will be paper — a postcard, an advertisement, a newspaper page. If you’re

lucky, he might even have photos, magazines, blueprints, records or receipts.

Besides an engaging conversation about Dallas history, opening the door to him could land you a former resident’s wedding announcement to frame and put in a hallway nook, or a story about a bowling-league champion who once lived in your house. There is no story too small for Jeffus.

A former detective and skip-tracer, he’s collected all of this over many years, mostly from estate sales. Much of his vast newspaper archives were cut from a cache of bound volumes he came across years ago. He doesn’t charge much for these nostalgic things, maybe a few tens or twenties.

When commercial property such as hotels are redeveloped, sold and resold, it gives Jeffus the opportunity to market his stuff multiple times to various owners.

It’s a niche that has kept him in groceries for decades.

One thing about W.K. Jeffus, known as Wayne: He’s old school. He points to himself with both thumbs: “Old. School.”

Jeffus carries a flip phone, and if it can’t be handwritten, he taps it up on his manual typewriter, and he still uses Mapsco to get around Dallas. To contact him about the history of your home or business, call 214.941.5238.

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