Dallas, TX
Did a Dallas chef finally win a James Beard Award?
Since 1994, no one in Dallas-Fort Worth has won a James Beard award for Best Chef. That didn’t change in 2025, when the awards did not sway in the favor of North Texas’ top toques.
Of the five competitive awards for a D-FW chef or restaurant, none in our region won. Again.
There’s no crying in the kitchen, however, because Dallas managed to have a memorable night. Dallas chef Chad Houser was honored as Humanitarian of the Year for his work at Cafe Momentum, a restaurant that hires teenagers who have been arrested and/or incarcerated.
That’s an honor he already won, back in April 2025. The evening of the James Beard ceremony, Houser talked about his mission to help kids who need it.
“For me, it’s all about chances,” Houser said in a red carpet interview.
Second chances aren’t enough: It’s about “first [chances] through one hundredth.”
Perhaps that point of view could apply to the Dallas restaurateurs who left empty-handed at the Chicago ceremony.
Oren Salomon, whose North Texas bagel shop Starship Bagel did not win for Outstanding Bakery, said in a text message as the ceremony concluded that he’s proud of where he’s from.
“With or without recognition, I love serving where I’m from and I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he texted.
“I’m thankful for Dallas.”
Dallas had five chefs or restaurants up for James Beard Awards in its final round in 2025, in addition to the noncompetitive Humanitarian of the Year honor. Let’s remember them one more time:
Chad Houser of Cafe Momentum
Winner, Humanitarian of the Year
Houser started Cafe Momentum as a small operation meant to help teenagers in a big way. Fast-forward 10 years, and more than 1,200 men and women between the ages of 15 and 19 have gone through the Cafe Momentum program, where each teen learned to serve customers and cook restaurant-quality food alongside required life skills classes.
The Dallas nonprofit will move to a bigger facility in 2026 and establish a new headquarters, thanks to the generosity of Dallas group The Meadows Foundation.
Cafe Momentum has expanded to Pittsburgh and has plans to open next in Atlanta and Denver.
“I’m often asked if Cafe Momentum has to be a restaurant,” he said as he accepted the award, “and I always say, ‘emphatically yes.’ Our industry is an integral part of every single community across the country.”
He said 60,000 children are incarcerated in the United States.
His message to them: “We see you, we’re ready for you, we’re here for you.”
RJ Yoakum, formerly of Georgie
Nominee, Emerging Chef
RJ Yoakum’s menu at Georgie, a fine-dining restaurant at Knox and Travis streets, received a Recommended rating from Michelin in 2024.
Yoakum was removed from his executive chef role at Georgie just days before the James Beard Award’s June 16 ceremony. The owner of Georgie has been tight-lipped about why he was let go, and Yoakum has not responded to questions for comment.
Yoakum worked previously at The French Laundry, a 3-star Michelin restaurant regarded as one of the best in the United States.
Other nominees for Emerging Chef were Kaitlin Guerin of Lagniappe Bakehouse in New Orleans, Nikhil Naiker of NIMKI in Providence and Jane Sacro Chatham of Vicia in St. Louis. Winner: Phila Lorn of Mawn in Philadelphia.
Regino Rojas of Purépecha in Dallas
Nominee, Best Chef: Texas
Seven times, D-FW chef Regino Rojas has been a semifinalist for Best Chef. That’s quite a run for the chef-owner of the casual Revolver Taco Lounge and its Michoacan tasting room, Purépecha, which share a retaurant space in Deep Ellum.
Netflix’s third season of Taco Chronicles featured chef Rojas and his pulpo (octopus) taco. D named sibling restaurant Purépecha the best restaurant in the city.
Other nominees for Best Chef: Texas were Emmanuel Chavez of Tatemó in Houston, Emil Oliva of Leche de Tigre in San Antonio and Michael Anthony Serva of Bordo in Marfa. Winner: Thomas Bille of Belly of the Beast in Spring, Texas.
Mābo in Dallas
Nominee, Best New Restaurant
Tiny restaurant Mābo, which opened in Dallas’ Preston Center in 2024, is a yakitori omakase restaurant. Chef Masayuki Otaka cooks skewered meat and vegetables on a Japanese grill, serving each course to diners on the other side of the sushi-style bar.
At $200 per person, Mābo is one of the priciest fixed dinners in Dallas.
Chef Otaka is one of the quieter chefs in a bustling Dallas dining scene, but he has more experience than most: He co-opened Japanese restaurant Teppo on Dallas’ Greenville Avenue in 1995.
Other nominees for Best New Restaurant were: Alma Fonda Fina in Denver, Atoma in Seattle, Ema in Houston, Fet-Fisk in Pittsburgh, Mita in Washington, D.C., Ômo by Jônt in Winter Park, Fla., Penny in New York and The Union in Helena, Mont. Winner: Bûcheron in Minneapolis.
Bar Colette in Dallas
Nominee, Best New Bar
When Bar Colette opened in 2023, tucked inside the West Village shopping center in Uptown Dallas, we called it “one of Dallas’ most interesting bars.” The opening cocktail menu was a journey to London, Paris and Mexico City, all from the middle of Dallas.
Brothers Brandon and Henry Cohanim and their team of bartenders have kept the adventure going as the food menu and the cocktail menu shape-shifted in new and interesting ways.
Other nominees for Best New Bar were: Agency in Milwaukee, Merai in Brookline, Mass., and ViceVersa in Miami. Winner: Identidad Cocktail Bar in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Starship Bagel in Lewisville and Dallas
Nominee, Outstanding Bakery
After winning Best Bagel in 2023 and Schmear of the Year in 2024 at New York BagelFest, it wasn’t surprising to see Dallas-Fort Worth-based Starship Bagel make James Beard’s short list for Outstanding Bakery.
The shop has expanded from Lewisville to downtown Dallas and North Dallas’ Hillcrest Village.
Other nominees for Outstanding Bakery were: Atelier Ortega in Jackson Hole, Wy., Gusto Bread in Long Beach, Calif., and Super Secret Ice Cream in Bethlehem, N.H. Winner: JinJu Patisserie in Portland.
Dallas, TX
Mark Cuban takes legal action against Dallas Mavericks ownership over potential new arena deal
Mark Cuban has gone to court over frustrations that he’s being kept in the dark about the Dallas Mavericks moving forward in their quest to build a new arena.
Cuban’s lawyers have filed a petition in Dallas County district court seeking sworn testimony from a corporate representative of the Arena Development Institute, a company formed by Mavericks ownership in Delaware.
In June, the Mavericks announced that they had entered into an option agreement for the potential purchase of 104 acres of land at the former Valley View Mall site in North Dallas.
The Mavericks’ lease at American Airlines Center expires in 2031, and the team hopes to move into a new building ahead of the 2031-32 season.
Cuban claims that this potential new arena deal could violate contracts he already has in place with the Mavericks’ owners in Texas.
In the document Cuban filed, he outlines his version of how he sold his majority stake in the Mavericks to Miriam Adelson and her son-in-law Patrick Dumont, the Sands Corporation CEO who also serves as the Mavericks governor. Cuban said he began working with them in 2019 to pass gambling in Texas. Their goal at the time was to build a “Venetian style destination resort” somewhere in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
In 2023, Cuban officially sold his majority stake in the Mavericks to Adelson. Cuban said that they had a handshake agreement in place where he would remain in control of the Mavericks’ basketball decisions while Dumont would be in charge of the team’s business side.
“This handshake agreement was reiterated in multiple emails and orally in the presence of Dumont, Miriam Adelson, another NBA owner, and Mavericks employees,” Cuban’s legal action read.
The Athletic asked Cuban if he could produce these emails. Cuban replied, “Can’t say anything at all.”
Dumont, of course, leaned on former general manager Nico Harrison to make basketball decisions, which went well — at first. The Mavericks made separate moves for P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford ahead of the 2024 trade deadline, which resulted in them catching fire to close that season and making a surprise run to the NBA Finals.
But all of that goodwill was erased when Harrison decided to trade Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers in February 2025 — a failed move that eventually cost Harrison his job.
In May, Dumont hired Masai Ujiri — a championship-winning executive who spent 12 seasons running the Toronto Raptors — to take over in Dallas as president and alternate governor. Ujiri will clearly wield significant power in Dallas. In one of his first major moves, Ujiri chose to fire coach Jason Kidd, despite Kidd having more than $40 million remaining on his contract.
Cuban maintains a 27 percent stake in the Mavericks but has minimal say in the day-to-day operations of the team. In the petition Cuban filed in court, he claims that Dumont once told him, “Why would I give you control of a $4 billion asset?”
— Melody Gutierrez and Nathan Fenno contributed to this report
Dallas police officers and firefighters are being praised after rescuing a homeless woman who was trapped in a ravine for days. First responders said the rescue pushed them to their limits, but they never gave up.
Paramedics and police officers responded to a call late last month in searing afternoon heat after a man working out near Conrad High School reported hearing faint cries for help.
“When we got the initial call with DPD, we were seeing notes that said that there was someone deep back beside the ravine,” Dallas Fire-Rescue paramedic Robert Kober recalled.
A recent storm had turned the terrain in the area into a thick, sticky mud. “You stepped in it, you sank past your ankles, sometimes halfway or more up to your knees. Nasty, nasty conditions,” Dallas Police Sr. Cpl. Mark Gnewuch said.
They hiked nearly a quarter mile through the muck, thick brush and even sewage to find the woman. A one point they even needed to fashion a makeshift bridge, Kober said.
“By the time I got out there, I’d already slipped and fell once and my thought process was ‘wow, she has been out here for a while,’” Gnewuch said.
“I was expecting to see someone who was barely coherent, possibly deceased, but when we arrived on location and I saw her, she was actually carrying on a conversation,” Kober said.
The woman was taken to a hospital suffering from severe dehydration, prolonged sun exposure and other injuries, but was in stable condition.
“I have been on similar situations where individuals who are in that type of environment for that long, they don’t survive, so it was definitely a miracle to make it through,” Kober said.
The rescue was proof of what can be accomplished when first responders work together.
FC Dallas announced today that forward Logan Farrington signed a contract extension through the 2027-28 season, with club options for the 2028-29 and 2029-30 seasons.
Farrington was previously under contract through the 2027 season. This new deal updates his contract options through the 2029-30 season.
Farrington has appeared in 14 matches this season, scoring a career-high six goals and recording a team-leading four assists. He was named to the MLS Team of the Matchweek Starting XI for Week 5 after scoring a brace and one assist in the Texas Derby against Houston on March 21.
For the first time in his professional career, Farrington scored in back-to-back matches from March 21 to April 4, finding the net in the Texas Derby victory and the road win at D.C. United.
The Racine, Wisconsin, native was drafted No. 3 overall in the 2024 MLS SuperDraft and signed a new contract on Jan. 22, 2025. Farrington has recorded 15 goals and 16 assists in 75 appearances since joining Dallas, the most by any 2024 MLS SuperDraftee across the league. He won the MLS NEXT Pro Cup with North Texas SC on Nov. 9, 2024, scoring a goal in the final. He also became one of six players in MLS history to record multiple games with both a goal and an assist off the bench in a single season in 2024.
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Quick BDS Take
There is no doubt in my mind that we’re going to see more of these types of announcements over the next few weeks as the club begins to reposition itself for the upcoming calendar change in MLS. There are still a lot of players on deals that run through 2027, so addressing what part of 2027 has to be done here.
Either way, I am all for adding more years to Farrington’s contract. He’s been one of the more underrated strikers in MLS and his partnership with Petar Musa has really been fun to watch over the last three seasons.
His numbers alone this year show that he’s been improving year over year with the club, too.
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