The only waves most people see in North Texas happen when the Cowboys are driving for a touchdown. But soon endless curls of, like, totally awesome and tasty waves will be peaking at Grandscape in The Colony.
If you’re stoked by that, so are lots of other Dallas-area surfers landlocked by the southern bulge of The Great Plains. Coming to the rescue will be Fireside Surf, a restaurant with craft beers and signature cocktails built around a customizable deep-water wave pool with up to six-foot-high “standing waves.”
Tech that offers ‘a perfect, naturally shaped wave’
An Urbansurf wave pool in Zurich ,Switzerland uses the Citywave technology coming to Grandscape. [Video still: Urbansurf]
The tech behind all this is a surfing system developed by Citywave, a company in Germany. Citywave’s patented deep-water technology features deep water both in front of and behind the standing wave, offering what the company calls “perfect wave conditions and the most authentic surf experience,” including “a perfect, naturally shaped wave with a glassy surface.”
Water volume, wave shape, and wave height can be adjusted by an operator with the push of a button, allowing beginners to try out calm ripples and more experienced surfers to carve their own gnarly masterpieces.
The depth of the Citywave pool allows surfboards with fins to be used, as well as “carving turns” and “top to bottom surfing.”
Green Berets are co-owners of Fireside Surf
According to the Dallas Morning News, Fireside Surf’s co-owners are Patton Nix, a free-fall skydiver with the Green Berets, and Billy Adams, a former Green Beret who previously opened an iFly indoor skydiving location in Washington state.
“We see surfing as very aspirational,” Nix told the DMN. “We sought to deliver the dream of surfing to locations where the aspiration of surfing can’t be met easily.”
The Morning News says the duo plans to spend $8 to $10 million on their Grandscape venue, which is slated to open in August following a construction start later this month.
Local chef John Franke has curated “surf eats” for Fireside Surf’s Splash Lounge, with sharable food options “fusing ingredients from the world’s most incredible surf spots.”
Fireside Surf will join lots of other attractions at Grandscape, which won the 2021 Most Innovative Retail and Entertainment Project award at the Global RLI Awards in London. Its attractions include a 180-foot-tall Ferris wheel, the first-ever indoor mini golf Puttery location, an Immersive Gamebox group video gaming venue, a sprawling, innovative Andretti indoor go-kart track, and more.
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