UPDATED: Local Restaurant in Deep Ellum to get early riser sibling

by Teresa Gubbins

• Tweet
• Email
• Print
• 9 Comments

Chef Tracy Miller is itching to do breakfast and lunch.

Chef Tracy Miller, owner of the charming chef-driven restaurant Local in Deep Ellum, is opening a second restaurant called Rosemont up the street at 2912 Elm that will specialize in breakfast and lunch.

Miller, who was hesitant to talk about the new venture because she doesn't have a firm opening date ("sometime in 2011"), said that breakfast and lunch were something she's always wanted to do.

"We're still a ways away, but we'll be serving breakfast and lunch, and that's about all I know right now," she said. "It will be more casual than Local, a very simple execution of breakfast and brunch, where it feels like a combination of a wonderful hotel and a diner, that’s not overcomplicated, with fresh ingredients, chef-driven, and local products when it makes sense."

That means eggs, pastries, "a delicious oatmeal," and a great cup of coffee.

"I'll have a full coffee menu, with coffee drinks, not a full-blown Starbucks but some specialty drinks that will be fun and make sense to what we're doing," she said. "I'll definitely have some wonderful pastries and everything we make will be made from scratch, from cinnamon rolls to a Pop Tart to scones. I have such a sweet tooth that the pastries were the first thing on the menu I thought about, from a piece of pie to cobbler to a nice piece of chocolate cake to a semifreddo."

The space will have 50 seats on the inside, with 10 extra seats at a cute diner-style bar, plus 30 seats on the patio with potential to grow. The building comes with an adjacent parking lot that'll make it easy for workers nearby to pop in for items to go.

"It's a total renovation," she said. "I've been looking at that space for over two years, it's been vacant for three, maybe even longer than that. I like the building because it's free-standing, and it's long, it's a shoebox style. I like buildings like that, that have a lot of potential, where you can see through the guts of the space, to create something independent and different."

Its proximity to Local is good, too.

"I like it because it's right down the street, which is a plus for a second location or second anything, where I can be close to it to maintain the quality of both," she said.

She's going to open slowly and then expand her menu and hours organically. "The initial focus will be breakfast and lunch, and then dinner will evolve; I'm setting it up for that as well," she said.

Miller was a pioneer in many ways when she opened Local in Deep Ellum in 2005, in the former Boyd Hotel, not far from Dallas Mozzarella Co. The neighborhood was in a slump, and her small-scale chef-driven focus was an early example of what has become the admired way to do a restaurant.

"Local has its own identity and its own soul, but I always wanted to do something a little separate from Local," she said. "I'm hoping this is going to be a destination location for everyone in the city and not just Deep Ellum, although obviously Deep Ellum needs anything and everything it can get."

UPDATE: The name has been confirmed as Restaurant Rosemont and will open in May, says SideDish.

Tweet