Dallas, Don The Beachcomber

I couldn't find many specifics on this so I am asking it in a new post.

Back in the late 1970s, before I moved to Dallas, some friends took me to the neatest restaurant. Finally, after years of searching I have discovered it was Don The Beachcomber. I know the general area of it but not specifically. And I am looking for any information on the original address, any photos of the building or anything visible like that. Can anyone on this forum offer any help, photos, address or anything like that...or suggest another place to look??

Thanks so much and tiki-on!!!

D*

Aloha, CallDon, and welcome to Tiki Central!

There were several Don the Beachcomber locations over the years... if you tell us more about the spot, we may be able to pinpoint which one it was. Here's a list of the Don the Beachcomber locations in Critiki (not an exhaustive list):

Don the Beachcomber locations in Critiki

Dallas, Texas - Meadow Road, just off Greenville Avenue, closed in the mid-1980s

This is where the Dallas address location was listed.

See ya,

Psycho Tiki D (I know I am and occasionally am here)!

Ah! I got all confused... when I read you were looking for a location you went to before you moved to Dallas, I thought it was a location somewhere else -- should have noticed the Dallas in your subject line!

Thanks for the tip-off, Psycho, I've now added this location to Critiki.

A bit of homework turned up these additional details (but no pictures, I'm afraid):

Don the Beachcomber's was on Meadow, just east of the first, original Chili's, corner of Greenville and Meadow. I think there might have been one other small business between the two restaurants. Chili's kept expanding by tacking on another room, in a ramshackle-looking way (Terlingua Pride burger was $1.10). Parking was getting cramped. Finally, after Chili's had become a chain, they tore down the original restaurant and that other business, and rebuilt with expanded parking.
I may be blurring the chronology in my memory, but I'm pretty sure Don the BC's building survived that expansion of Chili's, though the restaurant was probably closed by then. I do remember several years of driving by, hoping I'd see signs of it re-opening.
Finally, it was torn down for a gas station / mini-mart that I believe is still there.
Don's didn't have a particularly lofty interior, though it may have been high in the middle. It was shaped sort of like a big, shingled, peaked mushroom cap. The entry looked like a wooden foot-bridge with a little brook beside it. The brook continued on inside the restaurant, where it wound through, with a couple of little bridges across it. Big goldfish in the water. One wall had a tropical forest scene, and every so often, thunder would sound and "rain" would fall. Loved their Sunday Champagne Brunch Buffet.

That's from this web page. Another post on that same site describes the restaurant as being one of the round, UFO-looking ones they were doing in the '70s. Did a bit of searching and a bit of poring over maps, and came up with a likely address: 8380 Meadow Rd. That location is a Stop N' Go gas station now. The address may not be the one that was used when the restaurant was open, it may have been changed when it was bulldozed & rebuilt into the gas station.

Hey humuhumu...while you're adding Dons to your web site...

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=21785&forum=2

:wink:

On 2007-04-03 13:10, Humuhumu wrote:
That's from this web page.

You guys are great! But the funny thing is...I am the "donspiano" who started that thread by asking the same questions to the Dallas History message board. There were a couple of responses, then nothing for nineteen more months. I had not seen the follow-up posts. Originally, I asked that group, the Dallas History message board, about the restaurant. Guess I should read it more often.

But I love this tiki group. Another funny thing is, I have some of the books listed on the book page! And I have an on-line radio station that plays Authur Lyman, Les Baxter, Martin Denny and other "Beautiful Music" and "easy listening" artists, mostly instrumental. I have Yma Sumac but her vocal sound doesn't really fit the style of the primarily instrumental station. I need to play a few of her more "calm" vocals during the daytime hours.

Thanks again for the great help.

Don in Dallas

Welcome to Tiki Central CallDon! Always nice to see more Dallasites tuning in.

I've been doing research on several of the old Dallas tiki spots (including Don the Beachcomber) and plan on eventually posting my findings for each one in the Locating Tiki section. I haven't really even started on my post for DTB yet but I can give you a few facts.

The restaurant was opened in 1974 and closed in 1982, a short but not surprising run, and was located at 8380 Meadow Road at Greenville. The building was the classic mushroom shape that DTB became famous for. I found one picture in the Dallas Morning News but the quality is so bad it's not even worth posting. I'll mess with it in Photoshop and see what I can get out of it.

Food was typical oriental with a Polynesian twist but most people went for the drinks and appetizers. In 1975 a female bartender filed suit against DTB because she was hired as a bartender but was then advised that it was against company policy to work female bartenders where they could be seen in public.

I'll get my Locating Tiki posting up one of these days.

*On 2007-04-04 06:47, Kenike wrote:*The restaurant was opened in 1974 and closed in 1982, a short but not surprising run, and was located at 8380 Meadow Road at Greenville. The building was the classic mushroom shape that DTB became famous for.

Love it! I probably visited there around 1980. But I did not really know much about it then. I was with 3 or 4 other guys, all preacher-types. We came in from Garland so I didn't even know where I was in the city back then.

Were these all company stores or what? Any idea as to why it closed?

BTW, I went down to the new Trader Vics. After looking at the rather pricy menu, I don't remember DTB being that expensive for that time. How were the prices relativel to the $30 entres that TV's has??

Thanks,
Don

Here's the rendering of it:

On 2007-04-04 06:47, Kenike wrote:
The building was the classic mushroom shape that DTB became famous for.

Kenike, do you know HOW MANY Don B's had that "organic" architecture? I would love to know. I know of many of the following only through menu/matchbook listings:

The Marina Del Rey one (BOT page 74) did, it opened in 1970, but the San Diego one that opened in the same year did not. Then under Getty Corporation ownership, in the 70s the chain swelled to 18 locations, which counts the early Hollywood, Chicago and Palm Springs locations (which were definitely not that shape), and 3 new Hawaiian places. The Las Vegas, Malibu, Saint Paul and 2 Colorado sites were all in Hotels, I believe.

That leaves Corona Del Mar, San Jose, Santa Barbara, Houston, and West Lafayette, Indiana as possible Poly Pop pods.

On 2007-04-04 19:18, CallDon wrote:
BTW, I went down to the new Trader Vics. After looking at the rather pricy menu, I don't remember DTB being that expensive for that time. How were the prices relative to the $30 entres that TV's has??

Never having eaten at Don's, hard to say how the two would compare now. I know that these days Trader Vic's is geared more toward an upscale clientele...meaning more toward people willing to spend that kind of money and not your casual diner (I usually only do drinks and an appetizer). Who was Don's target customer? Judging by what I've read, they were geared more toward casual dining but I could be wrong.

As far as why Don's closed, not really sure. I know that they opened at the worst possible time for those types of Polynesian restaurants. It had to be hugely unprofitable to have only lasted 8 years. The Dallas Morning News archives are not available between 1977 and 1983 so if there was anything in the paper about it I can't get access to it. Repeated calls to the Dallas Morning News have gotten me nowhere. I figured out the year they closed by going through old telephone directories.

On 2007-04-04 20:23, bigbrotiki wrote:
Kenike, do you know HOW MANY Don B's had that "organic" architecture? I would love to know.

Not a clue, bigbro. I thought YOU would be the one to ask, ha ha. I love that rendering of Don's and the one pictured in BOT is fantastic. For what it's worth, here's the only pic I've been able to find of the Dallas location. This is without spending hours in Photoshop trying to fix it up.

Cool! Now you just have to find Ronny McKee, and he'll have to have kept all his negatives! Right! :)

Love those outrigger beams shot with a wide angle from below. Just to clarify to the photographically less experienced viewers, that sign must have been in the foreground, and the wide angle makes it look huge: It is not IN, or as big as, the entrance.

It's possible that O.A. know the architecture firm that did these pods, and that could lead to more info....

You can still visit at least one of the "pods" today:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=21785&forum=2

Regarding the food...I used to dine at Don The Beachcombers all the time. Most notably Hollywood, CA; Marina Del Rey, CA; San Diego, CA; and Maui, Hawaii. Don's food was basically Chinese/Cantonese food, that you usually shared "family style" at your table like you would at a typical Chinese restaurant today. It was Chinese food in a Polynesian setting. Which was a theme adopted later by many other Chinese restaurants.

So IMHO and experience...Don's was always much cheaper than Vics. Trader Vics always had more traditional full entree plates...Steaks...Seafood...Chicken. That sort of thing.

Vics was definitely more upscale.

That leaves Corona Del Mar, San Jose, Santa Barbara, Houston, and West Lafayette, Indiana as possible Poly Pop pods.

This is the first I've read that there was a DtB in Indiana. Are you sure about that? Do you know where it was located in that town?

*On 2007-04-06 16:16, PremEx wrote:*So IMHO and experience...Don's was always much cheaper than Vics. Trader Vics always had more traditional full entree plates...Steaks...Seafood...Chicken. That sort of thing.

Vics was definitely more upscale.

I drive down Greenville Ave all the time. A couple of nights ago, I turned up Meadow and there was the gas station on a HUGE lot for such a small station. I have driven by many times but not paid attention. I may check it out again today and take a couple of photos with my phone.

When I was at DTB, we were there for lunch and only one time. But I was a bit shocked at the $30 entrees at the new TV on Mockingbird. A friend and I meet and eat out at least 3 or 4 times a week. That's when we get our "visit" and gossip time in. Guess we won't be regulars at TVs. I love the decor but a $75 casual meal for two is not in our budget just to visit and talk about everyone else we know!

Back to Mexican or I-HOP or...gasp...Bennigans. What a shame!

I know. I just don't know what it is with TV's, years ago I told them that they should market themselves more towards a wider, middle class audience, but they still are trying to hang on to the original Trader's "Officer's Club" hoity toity clientele, which has long died out since Vic's day. I don't understand the restaurant business, and it is T.V.'s tradition to target the affluent, but where are they?
I get the feeling they don't see that the once "upper" middle class is less and less able to keep up with the spending, and the middle class is going broke, so they are pricing themselves out of the market. I would like to support them with my patronage, but it's just impossible for me to do on a regular basis. I think I only ate once at the B.H. T.V.'s, the cocktails are expensive enough.

I only know of the Don B. in Indiana from a menu list of their various franchises, and the only other info on it is that it was at the Sheraton Hotel. That does not necessarily mean that it was IN the hotel (though likely) sometimes Polynesian restaurants were build adjacent to, and still managed by a hotel.

The Colorado ones were at the Plaza Cosmopolitan Hotel in Denver, and the Ramada Renaissence Hotel in Aurora.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2007-04-07 09:27 ]

fyi, DtB entry in Wikipedia -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_the_Beachcomber

[ Edited by: filslash 2008-09-20 15:19 ]

I went by the Meadow Road location yesterday and took a few photos with my phone...Treo700p. For some reason, I didn't think about taking my camera. As someone mentioned, the lot is very deep, as deep as the width of two lots.

The location for DTB is on Meadow, a street running east to west. The DTB restaurant was facing North as this gas station is facing north. To the east side of DTB would be the rear of Chilies, which faced East on Greenville Ave., which runs north and south. To the south side of Chilies, also facing east, is a closed Don Pablo's Mexican restaurant where I have eaten many times.

To the left of this photo is the rear of Chili's. I cut off the sign. Chili's faces Greenville Ave which intersects with Meadow to the left of this photo. I am standing on Meadow taking these photos. This photo is looking south/east, more or less.

To compare the photos, you can get your bearing from the red/white "no parking" sign on the right side of both photos.

I am not good at guessing measures but here is something to consider. This lot, the Don The Beachcomber lot where the gas station/convenience store now sits is as deep as the Chilies and the Mexican restaurant side by side. When I used to park in the back parking lot of Don Pablo's, I did not realize I was actually parking behind where Don The Beachcomber's sat, facing Meadow Rd.

Look straight back in thos photo, to the right of the convenience store and to the left of the row of trees. That back wall is where I parked behind the Mexican restaurant. The entire gas station building only goes about 40% to the back of the lot. It doesn't look far in this photo, but it is. If I get a chance, I will park my car back there, then take the photo again from this position on Meadow Road.

I will also try to get a photo directly from the front, like the newspaper photo in the earlier post.

D*

[ Edited by: CallDon 2007-04-10 20:39 ]

On 2007-04-04 20:23, bigbrotiki wrote:

On 2007-04-04 06:47, Kenike wrote:
The building was the classic mushroom shape that DTB became famous for.

Kenike, do you know HOW MANY Don B's had that "organic" architecture? I would love to know.
..........
That leaves Corona Del Mar, San Jose, Santa Barbara, Houston, and West Lafayette, Indiana as possible Poly Pop pods.

Houston is (was) a YES!

From my forthcoming article on Houston tiki, a quote by SpaceAge, as found on HAIF:
"I think it was built about 1972 and demolished about 1980. It was a round, onion shaped building with a pond at the entry. You crossed a bridge lighted by gas-fired torches upon entering. The center of the roof had an opening with more gas fired flames. Inside, the concave walls were lined with bamboo and other lush tropical landscaping complete with trickling waterfalls and singing birds."

Sounds like a match to me!
F

On 2007-04-04 19:18, CallDon wrote:

*On 2007-04-04 06:47, Kenike wrote:*The [Dallas Don the Beachcomber's] restaurant was opened in 1974 and closed in 1982, a short but not surprising run, and was located at 8380 Meadow Road at Greenville...

... any idea as to why it closed?

Funny, small world. The post from the Dallas History message board, quoted earlier by Humu, was actually mine! Had no idea at the time "donspiano" (aka CallDon) was a TC'er.

As to why Don's closed, my theory is, a couple of things: 1) Generally intense competition in the restaurant business, at that time and place, and, 2) an outdated menu that no longer delivered on the implied promise of an exotic dining experience.
Dallas first allowed restaurants to sell "liquor by the drink" in 1972, and not just anywhere - only in areas designated "wet", by choice of voters. This started a big restaurant boom that first centered along a stretch of Greenville Ave. Don's was built, just off Greenville, in the first years of the boom. I remember it was common to first drive to Greenville Ave., then decide where to eat, as you browsed the restaurants. New Yorkers may roll their eyes, but his was a new experience for us Dallasites. Lots of money went into building lots of very impressive restaurants along there, in the mid-70's. Competition was fierce, but there was a lot of new money to be made, now that you could sell drinks, along with food. I remember restaurants so popular that they had 1 or 2-hour (or, 2 to 3 cocktail) waits for a table , for a couple years. Then they'd tank, as people moved on to something newer. Thing was, even with only a couple of great years, the investors made big money. So, there was a lot of turnover among even initially successful restaurants.
Towards the late 70's and early 80's, other parts of Dallas developed "restaurant rows", and the intensity of business along Greenville fell off.
Don's was successful for several years, then rapidly tapered off - the same pattern as many great, but long-gone theme restaurants in that area. (TGI Friday's and Chili's, both with their original locations along Greenville, figured out a formula for longevity. Was it, Don't let your menu get old?) I remember Don's was busy in '75, still pretty busy in '77, but by '79, you nearly had the place to yourself, on some nights.
I don't think it fizzled because of any particularly anti-tiki vibe - not in Dallas. I think many people thought it looked and felt "cool" till the end. I think it would have hung on longer, but for the food - the once "exotic", but now very plain and mundane Cantonese-type fare. New Chinese restaurants opened, during this time (also serving tiki-style drinks), and hotter/spicier Hunan and Szechuan food really caught on. Most of the traditional Cantonese-style restaurants, some decades old, went out of business. If Don's would have added spicier Chinese, Indian and Thai-influenced dishes, it would have been "new" - leading-edge exotic - again. It would have again fit the decor, which said, "Get ready for something foreign, mysterious, exotic and even a little dangerous". Maybe sweet and sour chicken and a fried banana dessert was exciting for Grandpa, but it wasn't doing the job, anymore. Heck, I loved the place, but toward the end, I treated it as a bar, not a restaurant. A bar that closed too early (in more ways than one).
In Dallas, in a very competitive restaurant market, Don's died of boredom with the food, not with the concept. My opinion, anyway.

[ Edited by: Limbo Lizard 2008-06-19 14:31 ]

Allow your humble servant to offer a few ideas. . .

I have spent a few years doing "drive-in archaeology," IE the same sort of stuff Sven has done for Tiki, I had done for drive-in theatres. There are more than a few of my pictures and research in Don Sanders books about drive-in theatres, as well as his DVD feature. But I digress. . .

If someone has a little spare time, a lot can probably be learned about the old DTB. Since someone found a picture that appeared in the Dallas paper, contact the paper for a much better copy of the picture. It will probably cost about $20 or so. Secondly, the article mentioned, one, "Chuck Gaetani." I am betting he is older, but probably still alive. Check the phone books and make a few calls. I bet he can probably supply some great pictures, stories, and other managers names. Chances are good, he can tell you exactly why it closed and when.

Another avenue is old aerial photographs. There are companies that take such pics annually. You can usually get copies of those for about the same price, $20 or so. They will show you what the restaurant and lot looked like and give you a good idea when it was demolished.

Lastly, look in the libraries vertical file and or old newspapers (especially the entertainment section) where you will likely find pictures of the restaurant and old advertisements. There might even be a short article about the place opening or closing. . .

Sometimes you can find great material easily, sometimes nothing. . but you never know till you try. Somthing else to remember is these guys (managers and such) are getting older and, well, passing on. The sooner someone looks them up, the better. . .

Regards,
Wesley Horton
American Institute of Drive-in archeology

Yes, all very good suggestions, Wesley. I am dying to see more material on the Don The Beachcomber UFOs. Even thought they existed somewhat more recent, and into the 80s, it is scarce.

I got a chance to drop by the main Dallas library, and found some clippings on file. Went back to the car for my camera - apologies for the roughness of the pics. Here's a review of the Dallas DTB, dated Jan. 3, 1975.

Here's another clipping, dated Sept. 11, 1975. It mentions a few other restaurants as part of the group. I remember Captain Cook's Seafood Grotto was on Greenville Ave. next to Chili's, a stone's throw from Don's. Pepe Gonzalez was on down at the corner of Greenville and Southwestern (now a McDonald's).

[ Edited by: Limbo Lizard 2008-09-13 10:28 ]

The Dallas library has reference copies of a publication named 'Dallas Menu', which printed menus from prominent area restaurants. They only produced two editions - Fall '76 and Spring '77. The paper was light brown, to enhance the look of the menus, I suppose. Here's what they had for Don's, in '76 edition. (Perhaps Kenike, with his superior photographic skills, can get a better image to replace these, at some point. They had menus for Vic's and Ports O'Call, too.)
Page 1:

Page 2:

Just a couple of current pictures of the tiki-less ruins of the Dallas Don the Beachcomber. Notice the parking stop still reads "Beachcomber Only" and the line of similarly marked stops on the left of the second image. From the marks in the asphalt and concrete, the original building must have stood to the right, partly where the back of the gas station footprint now stands (just right of image), and slightly behind it too.

Alas, no pile of abandoned tikis in the bushes.

GK

Great stuff...I haven't checked this thread in quite a while and just saw Limbo Lizards post from almost a year ago for the first time. Great pic of the exterior of DTB. Better than that old scan I posted before.

How funny that the "Beachcomber Only" is still visible 27 years after they closed?

On 2008-09-13 09:26, Limbo Lizard wrote:
Here's another clipping, dated Sept. 11, 1975.

The date and year I was born. Interesting.

On 2009-08-11 18:57, Unkle John wrote:

On 2008-09-13 09:26, Limbo Lizard wrote:
Here's another clipping, dated Sept. 11, 1975.

The date and year I was born. Interesting.

My God, Unkle! It can't be a simple coincidence - the odds are astronomical! But what could it all mean?

LOL wouldn't it be funny if I was named Donald instead of John?

On 2009-08-12 07:55, Unkle John wrote:
LOL wouldn't it be funny if I was named Donald instead of John?

Or, Ernest Raymond?

"The rum's the thing..."

[ Edited by: Limbo Lizard 2009-08-12 08:05 ]

I tracked down the newspaper photographer Ronny McKee some months ago. Unfortunately he does not have any of his old negatives of the DTB shoot in Dallas and suspects those were trashed long ago. Alas...perhaps another connection can be made...

What about the big wig, James Cook, that was posted by Limbo Lizard in this picture:

He would be a good person to talk to see if he happens to have any memorabilia or stories. Or what about the old general manager, Chuck Gaetani? That doesn't seem like to common a name is it? Who knows, they might have some old photos or paperwork from the restaurant.

Anyways, it's always a good shot to try and find these types of people. Half the time, if you can find them, they don't have anything but usually have a story or two to tell.

Keep us posted! It's cool to hear about these Beachcomber locations. There were so many restaurants but really there is very little documented locations out there. This one especially as it really didn't last long at all and had a very cool building.

Mahalo, TabooDan

I did a tiny bit of sleuthing, but came up with the wrong James Cook(s). I'll have to revisit this after I am finished exploring details of Ren Clark's Polynesian Village, which has been my part-time obsession over the last year.

GK

Sorry for the cross-post, but since it is in the title....

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/cityofate/2010/08/not_dallas_don_the_beachcomber.php

Here's the aerial view of the Dallas Don's from 1979 ~

The UFO is gone by 1989.

On 2011-01-30 12:18, Bora Boris wrote:
Here's the aerial view of the Dallas Don's from 1979 ~

The UFO is gone by 1989.

Thanks for this great photo. Is it on Meadow with Greenville Ave to the lower right in the photo??

And how can we see this and other images? Location? I would like to see the images on the outside of this one image.

Thanks,

D*

Airstream FM .com
Classic Easy Listening
Beautiful Music Radio

[ Edited by: CallDon 2012-01-19 22:32 ]

I used http://www.historicaerials.com.

I've circled the original 'Chili's' restaurant, opened in 1975. New seating rooms were added onto it, several times, before it was completely rebuilt in '81. It's no longer in operation, as of 4 or 5 years ago,.. but I hear they've opened others.
Next to Chili's and Don's was one of the Captain Cook's, mentioned in the newspaper photo caption, above. It was built at the same time as Don's, and is also long gone.

[ Edited by: Limbo Lizard 2012-01-23 06:59 ]

It seems as though this thread should be moved to Locating Tiki.

Here is a photo showing the UFO building.

And another photo showing the cool entrance that Zulu Magoo posted on his blog.

You can see the Tiki torches lit on the roof.

DC

On 2012-01-23 11:15, Dustycajun wrote:
And another photo showing the cool entrance that Zulu Magoo posted on his blog.

Which of course also can be appreciated in its full, unclipped, two-page spread glory in the Book of Tiki - with Tiki!

The second picture Dustycajun posted above (in color), and Bigbro commented on, can't be the Dallas Don's, unless the picture was flipped. Looks like "76", down in the bottom left corner, so it hasn't been flipped, or the "76" was added afterwards. Looking at the entrance, the layout in Dallas was a mirror image of this one.

The 76 is the page number from the Book of Tiki.

It has been a subject of much speculation WHICH location exactly the photo is depicting.

I found one of the Red Cedar shingle advertisements that I had clipped the photo of the restaurant exterior from so I got some better scans.

Close up of the large Tiki that was outside the entrance.

And, the ad also had this cool architectural diagram of interior layout withing the "UFO".

The diagram does seem to support the notion that the BOT photo is not from Dallas.

DC

Sweet pics DC! Thanks for posting those...

GK

Finally found some photos of the UFO Don the Beachcomber building in Dallas!

Some killer outside views.

And some nice inside shots in color and black & white.

Cool stuff!

DC

Awesome DC!

Amazing photos! So now lets flip the BOT image and compare with one of DC's new photos.

.

It sure looks like the same building, although the bridge and sidewalk seem a little different. Could they have been redone at some point? The BOT image also has a large tiki roughly in the same spot as the one in DC's photo (for some reason it's been cropped off of the scan posted here), but it is a very different tiki (Marquesan?). If you have the Book of Tiki you can see it on page 77.

Great pictures Dusty. They bring back a lot of memories.
I was born in 1971 so my memories of DTB in Dallas are from an observers stand-point. :)
Like Limbo Lizard said Dallas had only designated areas where you could buy alcohol. The area of Vickery Meadows being one of them. It was filled with adults only apartment complexes and was quite the place to live. There was a hospital in the area and I think a lot of the residents were hospital workers. In 1988 a law passed making adults only apartment complexes illegal. Most of the residents are now immigrants from various war-torn countries.
My parents had to drive from the suburbs to Greenville Avenue if they wanted to buy beer and liquor and amazingly enough their go-to spot, Cut-Rate Liquor, is still open, although it looks a bit more rough for the wear.
We always drove past DTB and I remember being entranced by the giant flames rising from the tiki torches and if I remember correctly, the top of the roof. I was always pretty excited to see the tiki torches at Trader Vic's too. Alas, my parents never took me to either spot because they were "not for children".
Limbo Lizard is spot on about the mild cuisine at DTB not being popular for long. Dallasites love spicy food and once Szechuan, Thai and Indian restaurants opened up Cantonese places had a hard time keeping up.
Next door to DTB was another theme style restaurant, Royal Tokyo. It looked like a feudal Japanese house complete with Japanese gardens and koi pond. It is still standing, but goes by the name Kaze Japanese now.
Further down Greenville Avenue off of Northwest Highway were 2 more theme style restaurants. The Black Forest Bakery, which looked like a German country house, and where we always bought my Black Forest cakes for my birthday and a pirate ship restaurant called Spanish Galleon. Both were torn down a long time ago. The Spanish Galleon because the very first Half Price Books location. I was in heaven shopping for books in a place that looked like the inside of a pirate ship.
Now there's some Dallas history for you!