Dish Society wants to make a good first impression on its new neighbors in The Heights. As it begins the soft opening of its new location at the Heights Central Station mixed-use development, the farm-to-table restaurant is offering some sweet soft opening deals.
The restaurant is taking 50 percent off meals this weekend: 7 am to 9 pm for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on Thursday, January 17 and Friday, January 18; 10 am to 2 pm for brunch on Saturday, February 19; 8 am to 9 pm for bunch and dinner on Sunday, February 20. Next week, the restaurant will be open for its regular hours (at full price) for a week of soft opening ahead of a grand opening on Monday, January 28.
“Every time you put a new team together it’s always interesting to see how they gel,” Dish Society owner Aaron Lyons tells CultureMap. “They just need reps. We’re lucky we’re at a point where we can put people in our existing stores to train them, so they’re not seeing live action for the first time on the first Sunday we’re open when we get ‘brunch punched.’”
Expect a crowd. Originally announced in April 2017, Dish Society’s fourth full-service location joins Tanglewood, Katy, Memorial, and its outpost in downtown’s recently-opened food hall Finn Hall. While the menu will be the same, the space has been tweaked slightly to appeal to diners in the Heights.
“Our vision for this one is to fit in with the neighborhood,” Lyons says. “We have a lot more taps, the bar is more pronounced. As always, we want to be that neighborhood hangout spot for breakfast, lunch, dinner, brunch, day drinking, date night, whatever.”
The new design also reflects the lessons Lyons and his team have learned along the way. For example, the entrance makes it easier to channel customers into a line when the restaurant is in fast casual mode during breakfast and lunch, while still acting as a hostess stand for full service at dinner. Closing in the kitchen limits the amount of noise that filters into the dining room. Custom tables fit the space’s width and allow for better flow around the bar.
All together, the new restaurant seats about 85 inside. An adjacent patio will seat another 50 or so. With a family-friendly menu and affordable prices, the restaurant should find favor with the neighborhood, even if Lyons isn't quite sure where everyone's going to park.
“We have more parking than most restaurants in The Heights, but it’s still nowhere close to being enough,” Lyons says. “People find a way. The last few weeks we’ve been setting up, we’ve seen so many people on bikes, with strollers, on skateboards, coming by, thinking we were open.”
For 50 percent off, people can walk a block or two.
Chicken and biscuits is a staple of the breakfast menu.
