“If you’re good and your social media game is strong, people will find you.”

Brent Reaves
Co-Owner
Smokey John’s Bar-B-Q
.…on how restaurants in Dallas choose their locations, via D Magazine.

A location can make or break a restaurant. So how do spots get picked for some of DFW’s favorite eateries? Five Dallas-area restaurateurs talked with D Magazine about pinpointing their places, including Brent and Juan Reaves; Sawsan Abublan, co-owner of Shawarma Press; Tanner Agar, co-owner of Rye and Apothecary; Jon Alexis, the force behind TJ’s Seafood, Malibu Poke, Escondido, and Ramble Room; and Khanh Nguyen, who brought us ZaLat Pizza and DaLat.

Opinions varied, just like their menus. “The best real estate is never going to be available on the market, because the people with the best real estate know it’s the best real estate,” Agar told D’s Brian Reinhart.

“It’s not just about, like, being on a corner, because that may not be the most important thing,” Abublan said. “It is actually the mix of residential and businesses around that location. And believe it or not, the presence of other food vendors.

For Alexis, it’s all about supply and demand: “Our goal has been to find neighborhoods that need restaurants and build them those restaurants,” he told D.

Nguyen believes leveraging cell phone data and even connected car data—like the big chains do—is the big game-changer for choosing locations. “They know the people who will like their food live right there,” he says. You can read D’s full story here.

To see why the New York Times called Dallas “the new Dubai of luxe restaurants,” read our story here.

And for a deep dive into how the experience economy and “eatertainment” are unexpected bright spots of the Dallas-Fort Worth retail re-volution, check this out.

For more of who said what about all things North Texas, check out Every Last Word.

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