The Epic’s Fine Dining Dilemma (2024)

A year ago, in June 2023, I made my first visit to La Neta Cocina y Lounge at the Epic in Deep Ellum. It had been open for six months and neighboring restaurant Komodo had opened in April, but I hadn’t yet visited the new duo of clubstaurants at the development. It was a bad experience. The service was up to par, but the music was deafeningly loud, my co*cktail was so loaded down with gold leaf that it clogged up the straw, and the food was underwhelming. I was literally served a wooden board smeared with mashed potatoes that had shrimp standing up in it. Perhaps worst of all, as a party of one I was directed to sit at the bar and it smelled — like spilled body shots and employees who don’t care. I left thinking that this complex simply isn’t for me, and maybe it’s not for diners at all. It’s a place for young people who want to party with some food available — and that is fine.

However, this month sees the grand opening of Paparazzi Chophouse at the Epic, the space that Dallas hospitality group Milkshake Concepts flipped from Harper’s Steakhouse. At the end of May, its neighbor, the Vegas-import La Neta, dropped a press release about how it has revamped its menu and hired all new kitchen and front-of -house staff, many of whom came over from Dallas-based Harwood Hospitality restaurants. It would appear that perhaps the dining experience in the Epic hasn’t been a hit for a lot of people.

Courtney E. Smith

Courtney E. Smith

La Neta CEO and founder Ryan Labbe agreed to have a frank and open conversation about what prompted the changes at the restaurant, including hiring a new executive chef, general manager, and assistant general manager along with what he characterized as 90 percent new front of house staff, and trimmed down menu with lower prices.

Perhaps the most salient point Labbe made was that he realized the prices on many of the menu items at La Neta were too high, based both on comps and on how many people they were attracting — or not attracting — on a return basis (the industry term for the number of checks in a night is “covers”). “We hit the ground running with 400 or 500 covers during the week and 200 on weekends... Then, out of nowhere, I went to like 170, 200 covers,” Labbe says, clarifying that the drop happened after roughly the first three months. Talking it over with his neighboring restaurants, they chalked it up to the seasonality of Dallas diners. And with an especially hot summer last year, that seems reasonable. People were out less.

“Then, we were all — Harper’s, myself, and Komodo — maintaining this, for lack of a better word, highbrow offering,” Labbe says. “But the customer we’re getting is not looking for that.”

Labbe also referenced a conversation with Komodo’s ownership, suggesting it experienced similar trouble drawing customers. In a statement, a representative for Komodo Dallas said, “In the summer of 2023, we had just opened and didn’t experience a cover drop. We are constantly programming our lounge and have added brunch recently to expand our offerings for the community.”

Komodo Dallas

Examining what was and wasn’t working led Labbe to change the portion sizes, the overall menu offerings, and the prices. Along the way, La Neta hired Harold Soto as its new executive chef. He was previously at Harwood Hospitality where he worked in the kitchens at Dolce Rivera, Happiest Hour, and Isabelle’s and Babou’s at the Hotel Swexan. Its new general manager, Eric Williams, came from Harwood also, in its hotel division. And the new assistant general manager, Brian Collado, was most recently banquet manager at Swexan. So, it’s logical to deduce that Harwood Hospitality’s concepts spoke to Labbe, although he makes assurances that he checked in with the hospitality group to avoid any bad blood. And that makes sense — Harwood’s restaurants are in a neighborhood filled with apartments that attract their target clientele: young people who are interested in nightlife, with some food in the mix, but nothing is so highbrow as to become unapproachable.

When Labbe asks me what I think isn’t working at the Epic, the first thing I bring up is the cost of parking. When I was there last, it was $20 to self-park or use valet, and none of the restaurants validated. That’s a hefty fee on top of dropping $100 for a solo dinner in Deep Ellum, but using the parking at the Epic is necessary, especially on weekends, due to a lack of parking. Any other lots are going to be just as expensive. Labbe agreed and mentioned that he’s been putting pressure on the developers to work with the valet company to either allow restaurants to valet or further lower their prices to a nominal fee for restaurant customers.

Labbe explains that a lot of the built-in customers that everyone assumed would exist when Uber was going to be headquartered in phase two of the Epic haven’t materialized since the company pulled out of Dallas. And it doesn’t seem that customers from the Pittman Hotel, also in the building, are coming over to this area — opting instead to eat at the hotel’s restaurants or venturing elsewhere. The lack of businesses on the first floor also doesn’t help. There are lots of empty spaces and nothing to do in this corridor, other than visit one of three rather expensive restaurants.

The other issue is the neighborhood of Deep Ellum, which the Epic is technically in although every owner on the Good-Latimer and Gaston Avenue corridor seems to be doing whatever they can to separate themselves from Deep Ellum. Labbe tells me that Rico Taylor of the So Clutch Group, which will open Vice Park on Gaston at some point this year, has coined the term “Good-Latimer Entertainment District,” which doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. There’s an assumption that visitors to Deep Ellum, who skew young and tend to visit nightclubs, bars, and live music venues, aren’t the customers these upscale restaurants are trying to attract — although perhaps that is changing with La Neta’s revamp.

After our conversation, I went back to La Neta on a Tuesday night well after dinner hours. I’d had a few co*cktails with a friend and decided to go for some 9 p.m. tacos and to put Labbe’s assurances that this wasn’t a place just for young people but for everyone to the test. It was a busy night, and the restaurant was still packed. The music was still at an ear-destroying volume. I pulled up one of only two free seats at the bar and it smelled just fine. Then I sat there, looking at my phone, for 15 minutes until anyone acknowledged my presence, while a pair of men at the end of the bar were attended to immediately. Roughly 10 minutes later, I ordered a co*cktail, which was once again topped with gold foil and this time tasted like the Luxardo cherry in it had gone bad — it had an aftertaste of cough syrup. I also ordered the carne asada taco platter, which came out in about 20 minutes and the steak was perfectly cooked.

Courtney E. Smith

Courtney E. Smith

Part of Labbe’s mission with this overhaul was improving the quality of the food as well as tweaking the menu, and I’d say they nailed it. However, the kitchen seemed to struggle to keep up with orders that night and the two sets of women sitting on either side of me had both been waiting for their food for a half hour. When one of them asked the bartender — the only server who appeared to be working — how much longer it would be, she told them that she could cancel their order if they preferred. My jaw fell open.

By the time their two chorizo tacos arrived, they’d lost their appetite. I watched the bartender walk the dish to those same two men at the end of the bar, who she seemed to know, and drop it off to them. When the two taco plates ordered by the women on my other side arrived, they pointed out an error in the order and also received a reply brushing off their complaint. Both sets of women told me they would probably not return. I left $50 poorer, after the tip and valet (this time the cost was down to $10), and with a headache. I’m still trying to figure out who these restaurants are for.

There’s something that doesn’t quite sit right about all of these business owners, some of whom are not from Dallas hoping to distance themselves from this historic, and historically Black, neighborhood of Deep Ellum that has long been the heart of live music, and thus nightlife in this city. It feels like a missed opportunity to connect with the people who love it already and incorporate its history into these locations. I’d like to see a late-night museum in the Epic dedicated to exploring Deep Ellum’s history, and that might give people something to do that captures them into the neighborhood. I’d like to see them courting some of the locals with small businesses that did well here but disappeared during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, like the excellent co*cktail bars Shoals and informal gathering spots like Braindead Brewing. I’d like to see them want to fit in, rather than gentrify it into another playground for the rich and generic. But that doesn’t seem to be the business plan.