The headline says it best: It’s a big week for restaurant openings and closings in Dallas. Sometimes forces come together to make a week like this busy, whether it’s the alignment of the stars or just a Dallas code compliance inspector who finally decides to give a thumbs up.

But along with the good news of openings comes the not-so-good news of closings. Let’s do good news first with openings, followed by closings.

OPENINGS

Alara, a Mediterranean restaurant from Turkish-born chef Onur Akan, has opened in Dallas’ Design District at 1628 Oak Lawn Ave. #120, in the former Pakpao Thai space. Akan, who previously worked as a chef at Nonna and had his own catering company, is calling it “modern Mediterranean,” with twists such as deconstructed baklava and the so-called Caesar salad, whose gem lettuce, fried anchovies, and green goddess dressing make it seem like not a Caesar at all. During lunch, Alara will feature a casual European cafe-style menu with mezze, doner kebab, sandwiches, and salads. Dinner service expands into a larger menu with nightly specials.

Bojangles, the Carolina chicken chain, opened a location in Plano at 3840 SH-121, in a newly-constructed building west of Kroger Marketplace at the corner of Coit Road. Bojangles specializes in fried chicken, biscuits, and Southern sides such as dirty rice, mac & cheese, and Cajun pinto beans. They made their Dallas-area debut in 2023 with the usual fanfare that first surrounds a chain, followed by the usual fading fanfare that surrounds a chain after it has opened multiple locations. In this case, Plano marks the company’s ninth location in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Maman, the New York café chain making a big expansion in Dallas, opens its new location at Hillside Village, the centrally situated center at Mockingbird Lane and Abrams Road, on April 23 in the former Palmer’s Hot Chicken space, with pastries, sandwiches, coffee, and exclusive Texas menu items. Opening day will feature an 8 am ribbon cutting with complimentary cookies for the first 100 customers who make a purchase. They made their Texas debut in November 2025 when they opened a location in the Plaza at Preston Center. There are also plans for locations in Frisco, Casa Linda, and the Design District.

PopUp Bagels, a buzzy bagel concept from the Northeast, will make its Texas debut on April 24, opening its first location in Dallas at Inwood Village, in the former I Heart Yogurt shop next to the Inwood Theatre at 5450 W Lovers Ln. #143. PopUp started as a backyard project during the pandemic. Their menu is limited — no sandwiches— and their bagels are sold whole only, not sliced, leading to their nickname “rip and dip,” in which customers rip the bagels in half and dip them into spreads. (Their texture is softer and lighter than the traditional New York dense bagel, making them easier to “rip.”) On opening day only, they’ll serve a Lemon Pepper Schmear that’s a collaboration with Wingstop.

Portillo’s, the Chicago-based street food chain, opened a location in Frisco at 16499 FM Rd. #423 on April 21, with Chicago-style hot dogs, Italian beef sandwiches, crinkle-cut fries, salads, shakes, and chocolate cake. Hot dogs come in regular, chili cheese, Polish sausage, and Maxwell Street Polish sausage with mustard and grilled onions. The location features Portillo’s “restaurant of the future” design, comprising a smaller, more efficient footprint. It is the 11th location of Portillo’s in Dallas-Fort Worth and first in Frisco; the first opened at the Grandscape development in The Colony in January 2023.

CLOSINGS

Super Duper Cookie Co., a social enterprise that employs people with disabilities, is closing its storefront in May. The shop, which opened in 2024 in the former Baldo’s Ice Cream space across from SMU at 6401 Hillcrest Rd., will be closing on May 1, according to a post on Instagram. Company founder Benjamin Crosland told the DMN that they’re closing because they couldn’t afford to stay in business. “We are sad to go but we know that we have made an impact in our community,” their post said. “We will be here until May 1, so come and say goodbye and get a cookie and dance under the disco ball one last time.”

Bon bons by Kate Weiser Chocolate. Photo courtesy of Kate Weiser Chocolate

Dozo Omakase. Omakase sushi restaurant at Trinity Groves closed on April 14, after a little more than a year. The sushi spot opened in early 2025 with an embrace of the then-trendy multi-course omakase style of dining, in small or large versions with basically four options: 7 or 15 courses, plus hand rolls and a nigiri-handroll combination, with prices ranging from $28 to $120. They had a cool happy hour with a new menu nearly every month, but it wasn’t enough. In their closure announcement, they said it was a difficult decision but invited fans to visit their sister restaurant Dozo Sushi in Richardson.

Kate Weiser Chocolate, Dallas’ renowned chocolatier famous for its colorful and artistic chocolates, is closing down. That includes all four locations: its flagship at Trinity Groves as well as NorthPark Center, Fort Worth, and Southlake, as well as online sales. Founder Kate Weiser, a pastry chef who founded her chocolate company in 2014 as part of the “incubator” program at Trinity Groves, told the DMN that Trinity Groves’ investors owned 60 percent of the company, and that they hadn’t been profitable in four years. She’s arranged for her signature “Carl the Snowman” hot chocolate kit to have one final Christmas season with Central Market for the 2026 holiday.

Stirr, the brunchy restaurant from Dallas-based Milkshake Concepts, has closed its final location in Addison. According to a post from the owners, they decided not to renew their lease; April 19 was their last day of service. Stirr made its debut in Deep Ellum in 2016, serving chef-driven dishes and cocktails. A second location opened in Fort Worth in 2019, then closed in 2021. Milkshake seems to be in a time of transition. In 2025, they closed Citizen, their lounge on Swiss Avenue and recently replaced it with a dance-music venue called Ctrl Room. They also own the small Mexican chain Vidorra, Serious Pizza, and The Finch, an American grill with locations in Dallas, Grand Prairie, and Nashville.
—
Stephanie Allmon Merry contributed to this story.

Cain and Kushner are launching a South Florida real estate joint venture, planning a luxury apartment tower in Edgewater for their first project, The Real Deal has learned. 

London-based Cain, led by Jonathan Goldstein, and New York-based Kushner, led by Laurent Morali and Nicole Kushner Meyer, plan a 40-story, 364-unit project on Cain’s 1.5-acre site at 614 and 720 Northeast 27th Street in Miami, according to a news release. The property is near the Missoni Baia condo tower that Cain co-developed with Vlad Doronin’s OKO Group.  

BDT & MSD Partners provided a $42 million loan for the project, which is in the pre-development phase. Construction is expected to start late next year, the release says. 

The Cain-Kushner JV is targeting residential and mixed-use investments and developments in the tri-county region. 

“We are looking at all opportunities that we think are sensible,” Goldstein said. 

Their South Florida JV comes as the region is experiencing another influx of out-of-staters after the pandemic-era boom, only this time the in-migration is primarily of wealthy individuals and their companies amid the blue-to-red-state migration. 

Yet, Cain and Kushner’s plans for Edgewater apartments come as the multifamily market has softened due to hefty deliveries in recent years. A record 18,600 units were completed in 2024, outpacing leasing that year by about 20 percent, CoStar Group data shows. Although construction starts have slowed, last year’s 12,718 unit completions still surpassed total leasing for the year by about 1,000 apartments.

It has led to slower lease-ups, more concessions and a drop in the average asking rents across South Florida. 

Developers starting projects now have said demand will catch up by the time they finish their buildings, with many adding that South Florida remains a strong apartment market. Many are betting on luxury rentals, which CoStar’s data showed made up the bulk of leasing in recent years. 

“We are big believers in South Florida and big believers in Miami,” Goldstein said. 

Cain, backed by Todd Boehly’s Eldridge Industries, has been investing in South Florida for nearly a decade, with the JV in some ways marking its second chapter in the region. 

Cain’s most recent project is the Delano Miami Beach renovation. The hotel, which closed in 2020, is expected to reopen in time for the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix early next month. 

Aside from the Missoni Baia condo tower, Cain also partnered with OKO on the Una Residences condo tower in Brickell and the 57-story 830 Brickell office tower. The office building was completed in 2024 fully pre-leased, catching a demand surge during the pandemic-era in-migration of out-of-state companies to Miami. Cain also is an investor in Doronin’s hospitality firm Aman Group.

Kushner has a presence in Miami’s Edgewater, completing the 37-story, 420-unit apartment tower at 2000 Biscayne Boulevard in 2024, with plans for more residential development next-door at 1900 Biscayne Boulevard. It also purchased the 276-unit Hamilton apartment building at 555 Northeast 34th Street from Aimco. 

Elsewhere, Kushner plans a 932-unit multifamily development at 300 West Broward Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. It borrowed a $115 million construction loan last year for a luxury 68-unit apartment project in Surfside. And it scored approval in October for a 470-unit rental building and synagogue development near Hollywood’s Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.

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ATLANTA – An Atlanta podcaster has been sentenced to seven years in federal prison after being convicted of using stolen identities to obtain millions of dollars in unemployment insurance benefits.

Jonathan Dupiton, who hosts the “Rich and Unemployed” podcast, is heading back to prison after pleading guilty on Jan. 13 to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in front of U.S. District Judge Victoria M. Calvert. 

The 36-year-old was ordered to spend seven years in prison followed by three years of supervised release. He will also be forced to pay restitution in an amount which has not been revealed.

The backstory:

Prosecutors say that in 2020, Dupiton was completing a federal sentence at a halfway house for a previous fraud conviction targeting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program when the crimes occurred. Prosecutors say he organized a multi-million-dollar fraud scheme that targeted California’s Unemployment Insurance (“UI”) benefits program that began in July 2020 and continued through early 2021.

The program provided temporary financial assistance to lawful workers who were unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the scheme, he obtained stolen identities of hundreds of unwitting individuals and filed claims in California, using a VPN to mask his actual online location.

After the claims were approved, he and his co-conspirators would route the benefits’ debit cards to a North Georgia mailing address, including his own address. He would then withdraw the money from ATMs, mostly in metro Atlanta.

By the numbers:

In all, prosecutors say that he duped the federal government out of $3.8 million, of which he was able to withdraw about $2 million.

Dig deeper:

On Dupiton’s podcast, he explains that his motto is “F.R.A.U.D. is Dope,” with F.R.A.U.D. being a “Finally Rich After Unstoppable Determination.”

What they’re saying:

“During the pandemic, while citizens were struggling with job loss and trying to make ends meet, Dupiton stole unemployment benefits by submitting false applications using hundreds of stolen identities,” said U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg. “His sentence underscores that anyone who seeks to exploit taxpayer-funded programs will be aggressively prosecuted and face substantial prison time.”

“Jonathan Dupiton orchestrated a brazen scheme to steal millions in unemployment benefits using the stolen identities of innocent victims, all while already serving a sentence for fraud,” said Marlo Graham, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta. “At a time when Americans were facing unprecedented financial hardship, he chose to exploit a critical safety net for personal gain. The FBI remains committed to identifying and holding accountable those who abuse public assistance programs and undermine trust in systems designed to help those in need.”

“Jonathan Dupiton stole identities and filed hundreds of fraudulent claims to steal nearly $3 million in unemployment benefits meant for struggling Americans,” said Anthony P. D’Esposito, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Labor. “His sentencing sends a strong message: if you exploit federal programs and steal from taxpayers, my office will relentlessly pursue you. We work hand-in-hand with our law enforcement partners and have zero tolerance for fraud. We will find you, and we will hold you accountable.”

“Dupiton’s fraud stole critical unemployment benefits from Americans who needed them most,” said Assistant Special Agent in Charge Maisha Horton, IRS Criminal Investigation, Atlanta Field Office. “IRS CI special agents remain vigilant in protecting taxpayer dollars and will continue to hold accountable those who exploit public programs for personal gain.”