Gastrosleuth DFW - The Wolfpack

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Join us for another memorable dinner at a certified DALLAS CLASSIC!

DUNSTON'S - A ONE OF A KIND STEAKHOUSE!

There are many steakhouses in Dallas and places that serve plenty of overpriced bottles of red wine. There are plenty of steakhouses that boast a valet service, too. But the ones that tout a self-service salad bar complete with bacon bits and wooden bowls -- those are firmly in the margin. The dark, beautiful, smoke-stained margin.

Walking through the front door of DUNSTON'S is like a magic trip back into time. Outside modern cars fill the parking lot. But just paces away, walnut-stained wood paneling and drop ceiling tiles frame a restaurant that hasn't been updated since the Ford Pinto was America's best selling ride.

Nixon was President the last time this dining room with burgundy patterned carpet got a facelift, and if you're wearing a burgundy jacket you can blend in perfectly with the tufted pleather booths in the main dining room. In the early ’80s, this was the gathering place for men from the Brook Hollow and the Dallas Country Clubs.

DUNSTON'S first opened as Gene's in 1955 -- a time when steakhouses operated more like family restaurants. Gene Dunston eventually changed the name to his family's. The original restaurant near Love Field has a loyal following, but lost some of its kitsch when it was rebuilt. It's the Lovers Lane location that has all the throwback charm. It's a vestige of simpler times, and a stark contrast to what you'll see in its modern counterparts.

DUNSTON'S offers cuts of beef, in prime and choice grades, alongside pork chops and fish, all of them cooked over a hickory-fired wood pit you smell as soon as you walk in the door. Make no mistake: the Mesquite-grilled steak is the staple. It's a scent that captures all of your childhood campfires and wraps them up in the smell of your uncle Charlie's basement.

DUNSTON'S is a feast for all your senses, but you should know to not expect three-star dining when you open your menu. This is not the place you come for a steak cooked exactly how you requested. You'll have much more control at the salad bar.

ABOUT THE UNIQUE SALAD BAR!

Every day, a DUNSTON'S team member is assigned to care for the salad bar. Greens are replenished tenderly and ice piled high, keeping items like the potato salad, sparkling with pickle juice, chilly cold. DUNSTON'S salad bar is like a newborn panda bear: It’s one of the neediest, tenderly cared-for species in the family, and its greatness extends back nearly 50 years.

It’s a wonderland of potato and pea salad, carrot medallions, fried croutons, chopped fresh egg, crunchy-crisp bacon grounds cooked that morning, pickled okra and fried bread. It basks in the smoke of the mesquite wood grill.

Wooden bowls are stacked in an icy cooler next to the bar. There are only a handful of salad bars like this left in the city, and DUNSTON'S is, by far, the only one that's so thoughtful. This is a freestanding monument to the purity of a simple food idea: It’s just a bar full of good food. It’s herbs and vegetables, and you build everything yourself. It’s likely we’ll never see another like it.

CHECK OUT DUNSTON'S MENU!

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

Choose all your favorites from the reasonably priced menu: www.dunstonssteakhouse.com/menu

(Click on the menu for Lovers Lane.)

Menu with prices:

https://cash.app/$dunstonssteakhouseus

THE CHARM OF STAYING THE SAME:

Chad Dunston says not a week goes by that a customer begs him to not change a thing. That's exactly what his family has done, because it's that sense of nostalgia that keeps regular customers coming back week after week. They come for the grilled chicken served with a baked potato. They come for that bacon-wrapped filet that's been on the menu from the very beginning. They come for the Key lime pie dyed a shade of sea green, and for the daily cobbler that's offered in blueberry and peach.

Regulars know the best seats in the house are the art deco captains chairs and black leather booths in the back bar. Walk through the front door for the first time and the throw-back appeal smacks you just as firmly as the smell of smoldering mesquite.

It works so well because the charm is authentic. In this time capsule there is no wistfulness or sadness, only happiness and fullness, and whatever that feeling is when you walk back to the salad bar for one more glob of ranch and don't look back.

PARKING:

Plenty of parking either in front or in back.