Photos by Kim Leeson

Photos by Kim Leeson

The overlooked and taken-for-granted businesses that we would miss terribly if they disappeared

The latest development here, rumors of a new restaurant there, and closures every other week — such is the typical fodder for business-news talk. But what about those oft-forgotten institutions — the ones that do not beckon with novelty or glamour but, rather, persist quietly, like a patient grandparent, waiting for us to visit? When we do, we are reminded why they endure: because they are genuine, loyal, sturdy and loved. They are a constant in a perpetually changing environment. Periodically, pay a visit to our neighborhood’s oldies. It will make you feel warm and a tad nostalgic. (Oh, and you should probably visit your grandparents, too.)

A Tex-Mex tradition on the move

Tupinamba: Photo by Kim Leeson

Tupinamba: Photo by Kim Leeson

When Tupinamba settled into the old Crystal’s Pizza space on Inwood just north of Forest in 1996, the shopping center bore no resemblance to the bustling neighborhood development that exists today.

“There was nothing out here,” owner Eddie Dominguez says. “But, from day one, we had great business.”

Over 67 years, the family-owned Tex-Mex restaurant has survived four location changes; another one is coming soon. In December, Tupinamba will occupy the southwest corner of Walnut Hill and Central Expressway directly across from Preston Hollow Village, which is one of the most high-profile intersections in Dallas.

The move will usher in a new era for the old-fashioned establishment, which has built its reputation on the basics — tacos, enchiladas, and rice and beans — amid the wave of trendy dining options flooding our neighborhood.

“It’s always been about food and service,” Dominguez says. “People will come to you if you have those things.”

The first Tupinamba opened in 1947 in Oak Cliff and operated there for 10 years before moving to various locations around Preston Hollow and North Dallas. Its previous homes include Lovers Lane; Northwest Highway across from Bachman Lake during the area’s 1960s economic boom (the building later housed the first Taco Cabana in Dallas); and on Midway at LBJ. Dominguez, who graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School, says he tried to stay in the neighborhood with each move.

Tupinamba’s origin, as Dominguez tells it, is an immigrant success story full of drama, love and betrayal. During the Mexican Revolution, his father, Papa Froylan Dominguez, known here as “Sonny,” fled the country at just 9 years old. The notorious Francisco “Pancho” Villa was recruiting an army, causing many families to separate. Sonny spent his early life working odd jobs in Texas and its border states until he landed a gig as a dishwasher at Dallas’ original El Fenix.

“That’s the way he learned the kitchen,” Dominguez says. “The cook took him under his wing.”

During that time, Sonny fell for Consuelo, a waitress working at another pioneering Tex-Mex restaurant, El Chico. They married and together began building their business, opening The Acapulco right across the street from El Fenix — to much success. So much so that Sonny began to hear rumors that his business partner was plotting to murder him in an attempt to keep the restaurant’s profits to himself. The couple didn’t stick around to find out what would happen next. They immediately left The Acapulco and launched Tupinamba.

The restaurant became known for its fried Tupy tacos, which still are the biggest seller and appear to hold their own against new taco crazes that have hit the area over the past several years.

Dominguez doesn’t try to replicate the popular items of his neighbors Rusty Taco or Torchy’s, but he still pays attention to trends. He recently added to the menu his version of the puffy taco made famous in San Antonio.

Dominguez expects Tupinamba’s new location to attract a more diverse crowd, but he doesn’t underestimate the value of his regulars.

“I have customers who I used to put in high chairs,” he says. “You create relationships. This is a family that you have.”

Did you know?
 “Tupinamba” is the name of an allegedly cannibalistic South American Indian tribe that inhabited Brazil during the 16th century. Eddie Dominguez’s mother, Consuelo, first encountered the word on a restaurant in Mexico City, liked it, and decided it would become the name of the family business.

Business in the front, party in the back

Dunston’s Steakhouse: Photo by Kim Leeson

Dunston’s Steakhouse: Photo by Kim Leeson

Most people know Dunston’s Steakhouse from behind.

Pull around to the back of the Lovers Lane restaurant on a typical Monday night, and you’ll see a nondescript entrance leading to a dark hallway. At the end, past the “employees only” kitchen, a door opens to a back-room bar full of old-Dallas elites — most of whom would not want their names in this article.

“In the early ’80s, this was the gathering place for men from the Brook Hollow and the Dallas Country Clubs,” says Chad Dunston, who operates the restaurant with his wife, Anna.

The nostalgic ritual stuck. And Dunston’s old-school steakhouse tradition remains relevant 45 years later in today’s neighborhood, even as many young families are trying to avoid fatty, over-processed meals.

“The perception is that people don’t think Dunston’s is healthy,” Anna says, noting that everything is homemade without additives or giant hunks of butter plopped into every dish. The salad bar is fundamental to the operation, and over the years, the menu has been updated to include fish options, vegetable skewers and healthier sides such as grilled Brussels sprouts. There’s even a nutritionist on staff.

However, make no mistake: the Mesquite-grilled steak is the staple at Dunston’s.

Chad’s father, Gene Dunston, opened the first iteration of the restaurant on Harry Hines in 1955. It was known then as The Wheel-in Drive-in, but when Gene turned his focus to the dine-in concept, he renamed it Dunston’s Steakhouse. The Lovers Lane location opened in 1969, followed by six other branches that have since come and gone (including the spot at Forest and Marsh now home to Cindi’s NY Deli).

Dunston’s and Kirby’s reigned as the two main steakhouses in Dallas until the early to mid-‘90s, when upscale concepts such as Del Frisco’s entered the scene. Dunston’s steaks are cheap by comparison. But even in a neighborhood full of high-end clientele, the restaurant has thrived on its regular customers.

“You go to the high-end steakhouse once a month,” Chad says. “You come here once a week.”

When Chad and Anne took over the Lovers Lane restaurant from Gene, who is now 83 and still operates the Harry Hines location himself, the regulars reacted with a resounding request: “Don’t change anything.”

Most of the updates have been subtle but necessary to attract younger patrons. The restaurant started carrying craft beers, for example, and Anna and Chad have worked hard to improve the wine list, catering to connoisseurs who wouldn’t mind having a fancy bottle of wine with their low-cost steak.

And they don’t have to try too hard to achieve the old-school, kitschy atmosphere that many new restaurants attempt to replicate. Dunston’s is the real thing.

“By default, we’re sitting on mid-century modern chairs from the ’50s,” Anna says. “This is an easy place for us to be.”

Did you know?
Via a lottery system, Dunston’s Steakhouse was the first restaurant in Dallas to receive a liquor license in 1971.

 

Meet me at the barbershop

 Christopher Grullon gives Sig Harris a haircut at Lovers Lane Barbershop: Photo by Kim Leeson

Christopher Grullon gives Sig Harris a haircut at Lovers Lane Barbershop: Photo by Kim Leeson

The neighborhood barbershop is never just a barbershop. It’s a meeting place, a bulletin board and a search engine.

“Before there was Google, there was the barbershop,” says KK Atkinson, the co-owner of Lovers Lane Barbershop, which is all that remains of the original businesses that opened in 1938 on the “miracle mile” between Douglas and the Dallas North Tollway.

Our neighborhood is home to a slew of sleek salons offering the latest hair and nail trends, but Lovers Lane Barbershop has hung on in the same location for more than 76 years as new boutique shops and a massive toll road sprang up around it. The Mayberry-esque main street is now part of the big city, but the small-town attitude hasn’t changed.

“We’re a small town in a big city,” Atkinson says.

Her father, Norbert “Red” Mikulec, bought the barbershop from the original owner in 1958, and it became like a second home for the family.

Having grown up in the shop, Atkinson knew the last thing she wanted to do was cut hair. Instead, she opened the barbershop’s nail salon in 1989 in what used to be a dark, creepy storage room with a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

“I was scared to death of that room when I was little,” she says.

Today the small back room is buzzing with chatter as clients sit in close quarters, receiving manicures and pedicures and catching up on each other’s lives. There are no TVs, just a few seldom-read magazines stashed in the corner. You can learn a lot by just listening to the women “gossip responsibly,” prefacing their stories with, “I don’t know, but I heard …”

The talk of the barbershop these days is about how the city of University Park plans to update the miracle mile shopping center to improve traffic flow and beautify the area. It would include new landscaping and light fixtures, along with redesigned parking. A petition against the plan hangs on the wall behind one of the manicure tables at the barbershop.

Atkinson says she’s worried about the potential negative impact it could have on business, particularly if she loses parking spaces or if the updates result in higher rent — a blow that has closed some of the old Lovers Lane businesses. It’s hard for Atkinson to imagine the barbershop going away along with all the good it brings to clients’ lives.

“We’re still a community around here,” she says. “The manicure is just a bonus.”

Did you know?
According to folks in the barbershop, there are two theories about why the stretch of Lovers between Douglas and the Dallas North Tollway was dubbed the “miracle mile.” Some say it was named after the Miracle Mile in Los Angeles. Others say it was simply thought that it would be a miracle if anything ever survived on the undeveloped farmland miles from the city center.

 

They’re making drugs in there

Pharmacy technician Jessica Potchinske at Dougherty’s Pharmacy: Photo by Kim Leeson

Pharmacy technician Jessica Potchinske at Dougherty’s Pharmacy: Photo by Kim Leeson

These days, almost every shopping center in our neighborhood has a CVS or a Walgreens, sometimes both, right next door to each other. So, how does Dougherty’s Pharmacy, which turns 85 years old this month, compete? The answer is simple. It doesn’t.

“We don’t really consider CVS, Walgreens and Walmart to be direct competitors,” says Dougherty’s CEO Andy Komuves. “The chain stores have all become about selling other things.”

Many shoppers might duck into a chain store in search of a greeting card, some last-minute Halloween candy or a cheap bottle of wine, vaguely aware of the pharmacy in the back.

“They dedicate 80 percent of the store to 20 percent of the most profitable items,” Komuves says.

On the surface, Dougherty’s has a similar setup at its Preston Royal Village store, but behind the pharmacy counter, much more is happening. Namely, drug compounding. There are two labs — one sterile and one non-sterile — where white-coated technicians are making medications from scratch to better suit patients’ needs.

“It’s sort of how pharmacy began,” Komuves says.

Nearly all drugs were created in local pharmacies from plant extracts until manufacturing companies took over the industry in the 1950s and ’60s, making the pharmacist simply a dispenser.

Dougherty’s, however, never abandoned its original role and is now the largest drug compounding pharmacy in the Southwest. The privately held company makes about $25 million a year, compared to the $3.5 million of an average chain store.

Our neighborhood mom-and-pop pharmacy has been defying the odds since its beginning. Bill Dougherty opened the store, originally in Oak Cliff, in October 1929. Two weeks later, the stock market crashed. With little competition at the time, the pharmacy survived. In 1967, the business moved to Preston Royal Village and now has another location at Forest Park.

Another large component of Dougherty’s sales is medical equipment such as mobility aids and bathroom safety products that cater to our neighborhood’s older demographic. But Komuves says the pharmacy is just as relevant to younger adults who might be caring for an aging parent while also raising a healthy family.

“We realize that the focus is going toward young moms,” he says. “You can take them through the family’s life.”

Did you know?
Dougherty’s iconic neon sign includes “Airway” in the name because the store once had a location near DFW Airport called “Dougherty’s Airway Pharmacy.” When it moved to Preston Royal Village in 1967, there was a debt owned to pharmacy. The owners worried that changing the name would legally void the debt, so they kept the name.