Lowest Greenville Is the Place to Be in Dallas

By Stirling Kelso
January 04, 2017
Credit: Desiree Espada
A decade ago, Lower Greenville in northeast Dallas was dominated by seedy bars and late-night clubs—a strange fit for a neighborhood filled with charming residential streets lined with craftsman-style houses. But in the past few years, groups of the city’s creative class have spotted potential behind the grit, and it’s now the city’s top stop for inventive, one-of-a-kind restaurants, cocktail bars and a growing retail scene that eschews the big chains. Despite the gentrification, Lower Greenville has maintained its casual, rough-around-the-edges vibe. And nowhere is this more apparent than at the neighborhood’s southern base, which has become a de facto HQ for Dallas’ young, up-and-coming chefs (along with a high concentration of yogis and artists). Here, our favorite finds on the pedestrian-friendly streets of this swath of Lower Greenville—the blocks of which have been dubbed Lowest Greenville by its tight-knit residents.
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Touring Dallas' Lowest Greenville Neighborhood

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The Blind Butcher

Credit: Desiree Espada

This meat-focused restaurant is best known for its charcuterie and hand-cranked sausages, almost all of it made in-house by executive chef Oliver Sitrin (who also ferments vegetables for pickles and makes the restaurant’s own mustard and potato chips). The Blind Butcher celebrates lesser-known proteins such as spider steaks (a cut of beef that sits on the hip) and fried pig ears, served with orange fennel aioli (best eaten with one of the many craft brews on tap). You can balance out the beef and pork with a watermelon or butter leaf salad, but it’s hard to get away from meat here, even with dessert: the restaurant’s signature chocolate cake is cooked with marrow (for extra richness) and served in a hollowed out bone. Any doubts about the weirdness of the dish fade away after the first decadent bite.

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Dude, Sweet Chocolate

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Truck Yard

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Bullzerk

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Good Records

Credit: Desiree Espada

Owner Chris Penn was always obsessed with music, spending much of his San Antonio youth in record stores hoping to score some gems. So it was a dream come true when Penn (who has lived in Lower Greenville for almost a decade) opened Good Records 16 years ago, which not only sells a vast selection of LPs and CDs, but also serves as a neighborhood hangout of sorts, hosting several in-store concerts, DJ sets and parties throughout the year. The store carries a wide range of artists that are organized alphabetically, and if you spend enough time browsing through the stacks, you might strike vinyl gold (they’ve sold the Beatles Butcher Cover—a rare edition of their 1966 album, “Yesterday and Today”—a handful of times). Buyers need to move fast, though: Penn prices his merchandise to move, and sometimes his records are snatched up within a day of being displayed.

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