Steak in Dallas, for $22? Steakyard opens this fall with price in mind

If you’re getting a steak at Steakyard, it’s going to be steak frites.

The new restaurant is expected to open in October 2023 on Northwest Highway in East Dallas, east of the flagship Half Price Books. It’ll serve three options for steak frites, each priced very reasonably: steak bavette for $22, a filet for $25, or a 12-ounce rib-eye for $32.

Each “very large” portion will come with fries and peppercorn sauce. Simple as that, says co-owner Evandro Caregnato.

“Why?” he asks rhetorically. “Because I love it.”

Steakyard will have a full menu of other options for those who aren’t eating steak.

Beef has been a big part of Caregnato’s career. He was culinary director at Texas de Brazil for about two decades. He’s a Brazilian native who moved to Texas to work in the restaurant industry, and he never left.

In 2018, Caregnato and his wife Dede Mallman opened DeLucca Gaucho Pizza & Wine, an elegant restaurant with pizza, served tableside, for a fixed price. Caregnato and Mallman grew it from Southlake to Plano, Fort Worth, the Dallas Design District and Austin, then sold it in late 2022.

Caregnato probably could have left restaurants altogether after that, but no: “I love the process,” he says during a tour of Steakyard. Workers were sealing the stained concrete floors as Caregnato pointed to each corner of the 200-seat restaurant. Over there will be curved burgundy booths underneath brass fixtures. The open kitchen will have a large hearth on display, with hooks and grates holding hunks of meat cooking over open flame. The bar has windows that look out on a patio shaded by a large live oak tree.

“I picked this restaurant because of this tree,” he says, pointing to it. While the heart of the restaurant is inside, where customers will eat oysters, crudo, steak frites and pasta, the exterior will take on another life.

The patio is situated behind the restaurant, where busy Northwest Highway is almost an afterthought. It’ll be a much more casual atmosphere out there, where customers will sit on picnic tables under strings of lights. The menu will be different, and guests will order from a walk-up window.

The main restaurant will open before the patio. Caregnato is waiting for cooler weather.

While Dallas does not have many low-priced steakhouses, it’s poised to become a trend. Cheapsteaks in Deep Ellum opened in 2021, selling an 8-ounce sirloin for $16.99. Also in Deep Ellum but not open yet, Let’s Ask Keith is billed as an “affordable, approachable” steakhouse from the team who owns HG Sply Co. and Leela’s.

Steakyard will not be a casual place, Caregnato points out, even though steaks will be lower priced than nearly all of the other steakhouses in town like Nick & Sam’s, Town Hearth and Al Biernat’s. Caregnato himself has created the menu, which includes “Proper Bolognese” with housemade pasta, crab cakes with remoulade, and Cotoletta alla Milanese.

His hope for Steakyard is that it feels more accessible than the many high-dollar restaurants in Dallas.

“We don’t want to be a steakhouse that’s only for special occasions,” he says.

Steakyard will be at 6726 Shadybrook Lane, Dallas. It’s expected to open in October 2023.

For more food news, follow Sarah Blaskovich on Twitter at @sblaskovich.