It is difficult to determine the most interesting aspect about Invasion, a new restaurant originally designed to offer a late-night menu with healthy options in Old East Dallas, just 2 miles south of Lower Greenville.
In addition to the savory strawberry goat cheese-stuffed burger that’s already gaining a following, Invasion is unusual in that it opened in March during the first week that dining rooms were ordered closed in Texas, a gutsy time to proceed with starting a restaurant.
Stay-at-home orders in Dallas began on the day of the restaurant’s planned opening on March 17. While pondering their next steps, chef Airric Heidelberg and his business partner Agon Raka decided to prepare meals with food they already had prepped and deliver it to homeless persons in downtown Dallas instead. The two cooked and gave away around 200 meals to the homeless and proceeded to offer takeout on a limited schedule before the week ended.
Almost three months later, while continuing daily takeout specials and gauging customer feedback, Heidelberg and Raka have persisted in donating around 200 to 600 meals each week since opening. Partnerships include the Human Impact and Behind Every Door, nonprofits dedicated to addressing poverty, as well as Kids Save Dallas Restaurants and Serving Up Gratitude, both temporary initiatives designed to support local restaurants.
Heidelberg and Raka are unique to the restaurant industry in themselves. Heidelberg has a nutrition degree with a background in personal training, along with two bodybuilding titles — Mr. Texas and Mr. USA. He has cooked for former Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings and motivational speaker Tony Robbins, and he most recently turned down a personal chef position for the Dallas Stars’ Jamie Benn to open Invasions, his first restaurant.
Heidelberg says he learned to cook from his grandparents and from a chef in his college town of Nacogdoches, where he worked for free in exchange for the opportunity to learn directly from someone in the business. At Invasions, he applies his nutrition background to create a menu with healthy and halal options, and he is part of a growing vanguard of black American chefs in Dallas fulfilling the demand for healthier food. He says he’s always wanted to open restaurants, and that he currently has several concepts in mind.
Heidelberg isn’t Muslim, but he uses halal beef because he believes it contributes to a cleaner diet. There are no pork products in the Invasion kitchen, so it’s beginning to attract members of Dallas’ Muslim community, especially after one leader shared the restaurant on social media. Additional health-focused items are baked wings that come dressed in fiery housemade sauces and two rice bowls that can be prepared vegetarian or vegan.
The most popular item ― the Cardi B buttermilk-fried chicken sandwich ― maybe isn’t health food, but the seasoned crisp potatoes that come with it are just as satisfying as fries and have less calories. For a hot fried chicken sandwich, the Cardi B can be ordered with Invasion sauce, a spicy Buffalo sauce that’s cooled off with lemon sour cream.
Raka, 28, has opened three restaurants before Invasions with his brother-in-law Florenc Leshnja, who also has a stake in Invasion’s ownership. Together the pair have opened Roma Italian Bistro in Lufkin and Gallo Nero’s two North Texas locations. They sold the Greenville Avenue location to an investor but kept the change in management quiet since everything on the menu will remain the same.
After a short time using his masters in accounting degree as an employee at KPMG, Raka decided against the corporate world to follow in the steps of his aunt Frida Skepi. Skepi took Raka’s family in when they arrived as war refugees from Albania in 1999, and she is the owner of Lewisville’s Alfredo’s Pizza & Pasta that’s been in business for 32 years. In addition to Raka’s family of four, Skepi hosted 15 other Albanians until they re-settled.
“When I say we arrived with the shirts on our backs, that’s literally what we had. She helped a lot of people,” he says, adding that Skepi’s help is one reason Invasions started with charity when there wasn’t any business yet. “I feel like I’ve always had help in some way my whole life, and if I have an opportunity to help someone else, I try my best to pay it forward.”
Raka is working on getting a patio installed and obtaining a liquor license, but those tasks are harder to accomplish now with social distancing measures still in place. And they did not sustain any damage during recent protests, Raka says, but the new curfew will affect their hours.
Of his restaurants thus far, Invasions has been the most difficult to start, and Raka says they are barely breaking even. “You’re always going to run into challenges in the restaurant business, but this has been weird — I don’t know how else to say it," he says. "But we’re motivated. We believe in our product, and we believe in ourselves.”
Invasion is located at 4029 Crutcher Street. 214-272-7312. eatinvasions.com.