"This was an old Luby's," owner Jon Alexis tells Local Profile. Out front, near the entrance of Birdie's Eastside, there's the sign to prove it, but as he adds. "We graffitied it all up."
Alexis, the restauranteur behind TJ's Seafood, Ramble Room and Escondido, opened Birdie's Eastside this December.
We're here on a weeknight, and the place is packed, friends and families abound. Portraits of cowboy icons like Willie, John Wayne and James Dean (in Giant garb) adorn the walls. Zack Bryan and Charlie Crockett provide the soundtrack, while football plays on the flatscreens. It's a chilly evening, and some folks dine on the large patio. I'd love to do the same, come spring, I think.
"So far, it looks like a rousing success," I tell Alexis. "On Saturday, we served a thousand people," he says. "One thousand and nineteen, to be exact. We're not even a week old."
Alexis already has a well-deserved following. TJ's is a Dallas institution that locals grow up on, have kids and then bring their kids to. Ramble Room already feels like a Park Cities mainstay — and was deservedly one of Local Profile's best new restaurants of 2023. Brunch at Escondido, especially their French toast, is not to be missed. Alexis has fans, and they've come out in full force.
This is a neighborhood bar and grill, and it feels like that. Fun and casual but for Alexis, good is not good enough. "We are trying to make everything better than it needs to be," he says. That, they do.
The birria sliders — listed on the menu, fittingly under "game day fare" — are an umami symphony: savory sweet roasted beef served with melted cheese on Hawaiian rolls with beef broth. Delicious. And the spicy tuna wonton tacos, made with raw ahi tuna, avocado and slaw with ponzu, were gobbled up in good order. Those paved the way for penne pasta alla vodka and grilled salmon with basmati rice, cucumber salad and tzatziki.
The menu proudly states, "All seafood curated by TJ's Seafood." The salmon, of course, is delicious. ("If we can't do seafood right, what can we do?" says Alexis.)
Dessert is a red velvet whoopie pie, and a seriously good one. So good, if Alexis opened a whoopie pie shop, I'd be first in line.
Memories are powerful, especially those connected to restaurants. They evoke times and places that exist now and, like the Luby's this space previously housed, places that have changed or no longer exist.
Birdie's Eastside reminds me of the neighborhood bar and grills I remember spending countless Saturday evenings at as a kid with my parents — but better. It's a place I want to return with our kids, relax and watch sports, enjoy a meal and make memories, and that, I guess, is the highest compliment of all.
Birdie's Eastside is located at 6221 E Mockingbird Ln, Dallas, TX 75214.
