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Dallas Business Journal Article

The renowned Tolbert's Texas Chili Parlor is making a comeback, but minus the chili title.

The revamped restaurant will have more than the "bowl of red" that made the late Frank X. Tolbert's Dallas Main Street location famous, according to his daughter, Kathleen Tolbert Ryan.

Tolbert's, set to open in downtown Grapevine's historic district in March 2006, will offer traditional Texas cuisine: chili, chicken-fried steak, steaks, seafood, boquillas burritos -- chili burritos with lettuce, tomatoes and cheese -- and the chili parlor's famous Donkey Tails, hot dogs wrapped in flour tortillas with cheese and deep-fried.

Tolbert, a well-known Texas journalist and chili impresario, opened Tolbert's Texas Chili Parlor on Dallas' Main Street in 1976, after retiring from his 30-year career as a columnist for The Dallas Morning News. The family later opened a second restaurant on Cedar Springs Road and relocated the original Tolbert's Texas Chili Parlor to McKinney Avenue.

After Tolbert died in 1984, the family opened its third location on St. Paul Street. The family operated each restaurant under various partnership and licensing agreements. One by one, the parlors closed over the years, with the final location on St. Paul shutting its doors in 2003 after 17 years in business.

Ryan was involved in operations of the other Tolbert's locations.

"We were always closed down because of new development," Ryan said. "We never really went out of business."

For the new Tolbert's Restaurant, Ryan has enlisted the help of her brother and former Tolbert's chili cook, Frank X. Tolbert 2, and long-time kitchen manager Rudolfo Ojeda.

Some of the restaurants' other former employees are also in on the project. Dennis Waller, who flipped burgers on Main Street, is designing and overseeing construction of the restaurant. Waller owns Artistic Creations of Dallas, a design/build and construction management firm.

"We're striving to have it not look like a Chili's or an On the Border," Waller said. "It isn't going to look like anything else that's out there. It will stay very true to what Frank Tolbert envisioned -- an old Texas hangout that serves a damn good bowl of chili."

David Knouse, former operator of the Tolbert's at the intersection of Oak Lawn and Cedar Springs, has consulted with Kathleen and her husband, Paul, on the business plan. Knouse and Waller worked together at Sixx Holdings Inc., a Dallas-based publicly traded firm that owns and operates Patrizio and Cafe Pacific.

The historic building at 423 Main St. in Grapevine that will house Tolbert's is just blocks from Ryan's Tolbert's Texas Trading Co., a store specializing in Texas-themed gifts and novelties. At 4,900 square feet, the restaurant, which Ryan said will seat up to 170 patrons, will be smaller than all but the first of Tolbert's previous locations.

Matthew Mabel, president of Surrender Inc., a Dallas-based restaurant consulting firm, said he believes the restaurant could succeed in Grapevine's competitive restaurant market.

"I think Grapevine is becoming, obviously, a focal point for the entire region, because of Grapevine Mills mall, the Gaylord Texan and all that development," he said. Its long-term future depends on "how well the owners tell the Tolbert story, and execution in the dining room," he said.

Read more: Tolbert's revival drops chili title - Dallas Business Journal
http://dallas.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2005/08/29/story6.html

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Sunday, July 18, 2010

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