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Streetside Caf?: Down Home Comes to Downtown
By Michael Anderson and Anthony Lowenberg
After our last few exotic outings, we felt that maybe we should tone things down a bit, like this year’s Super Bowl halftime show. Man, that Justin Timberlake sure did age a lot during the last year. And what was with all the old Beatles songs? Anyway, we decided to get back to the basics and try another new place on the Dallas scene that offers up old-fashioned down-home cooking. Streetside Caf? is located across from the Dallas Public Library and right near City Hall. The menu may not be exotic, but the food is good enough that workers from City Hall have apparently taken notice, and during our recent visit the place was packed at lunchtime.
The setup is simple, with a counter to place your order and a number to put on your table. In addition to the tables inside, there is a patio. Everything is very clean, neat and tidy, like a lawyer’s kitchen and dining room, except that this kitchen and dining room is actually used. Although it is new, the atmosphere is definitely old school with pictures of old-timey Dallas (let us know if you know what the Pig Stand was all about), and with only bottled soft drinks in the small refrigerator near the counter. The place serves everything you would expect at a down-home establishment: burgers, sandwiches, meat loaf, chicken fried steak, quesadillas and soups. But fear not, trendy diners, they have wraps, too. Wraps. Man, that’s so 2004! All of the entrees are priced between $5 to $7 with soups between $3 and $5 and sides and drinks running from $1 to $2. The soft drink selection is very impressive, including pure cane sugar Dr. Pepper in old-timey bottles, and Hank's Root Beer in old-timey bottles. Old-timey. That expression is so now.
The best part about this restaurant’s down-home cooking is that it certainly seemed fresh and homemade. The chicken tortilla soup was full of spicy chicken, cheese and vegetables, with some broth thrown in for good measure. The meatloaf in Creole sauce is not spicy, but it's just like mom used to make, if mom made Creole meatloaf. We don’t know, our moms’ aren’t Creole. Entrees like the meatloaf come with fluffy mashed potatoes and delicious saut?ed vegetables. The bacon cheeseburger didn't disappoint either; it was big and juicy with lots of gooey cheese, served with a side of heart attack (That’s fries to you young’ins. There’s nothing like a good heart attack joke to… Ok, there are no good heart attack jokes.) Tuna salad on rye tasted very fresh, and was light with not too much mayo. Sandwiches come with a choice of fruit or potato chips, although the fruit on our visit was only melon. For dessert, Streetside offers a rotating selection of homemade pies. The coconut cream pie is delicious. Who knew coconut cream pies were for eating and not just for throwing at people’s faces, like on television?
Even with growing lines, service was efficient and quick. The whole lunch experience took half an hour, which is nice considering you may want to drive to Streetside if you work on the fringes of downtown or beyond. That brings us to the biggest negative for Streetside – the location. It's a little too far to walk from the glass towers part of downtown, but if you drive you'll need to either feed the meter or that parking lot mail box monster. So, if you forget to bring change or dollar bills, you're out of luck. Even with its slightly inconvenient location, for a fresh, filling lunch, you'll be glad you made the trip. On our world-famous, patented, trademarked and deep-fried five-gavel scale, we give Streetside Caf? four gavels.
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