If you’re not familiar with the East Quarter yet, it’s time to take another drive through downtown Dallas.
The East Quarter is being redeveloped on the eastern edge, near Main and Commerce streets just before they dip into Deep Ellum. And while many of us stayed away from downtown during the pandemic, Dallas company Todd Interests built new towers and restored others, some which date back more than 100 years. They’ve been working on the neighborhood since 2018.
The East Quarter’s first restaurant, National Anthem, opened Oct. 6, 2021 and shows off the neighborhood’s effortless charm. The restaurant is in an odd and iconic building, a triangular-shaped spot at 2130 Commerce Street. It’s been home to KLIF radio and was previously in the middle of Automobile Row — which restaurant operator Nick Badovinus says gives the space a “rock and roll” vibe.
“You don’t find structures like this,” he says. “This is truly one of one.”
National Anthem is Badovinus’ ode to American food. It’ll be an anchor for what’s to come in Dallas’ East Quarter, an area Badovinus thinks will be “the center of a rediscovered part of the city.”
Badovinus has a knack for transforming an empty room into a vibrant restaurant. He did it most notably with his flashy steakhouse in the Design District, Town Hearth — a place so curious on the outside that you wouldn’t believe it had dozens of crystal chandeliers and one of the most over-the-top dining rooms in the city unless you peeked in. He also went deep on the design with his funky Greenville Avenue drinking den, Desert Racer, and his now-closed burger joint in West Dallas, Off-Site Kitchen (may it rest in peace).
National Anthem is Badovinus’ first restaurant specifically in downtown Dallas.
The intention is to serve “stuff you can eat every day,” Badovinus says, with a few twists. He knew he needed at least one good burger; reliably great seafood; and appetizers both expected and not.
Fans of Neighborhood Services, which is possibly Badovinus’ best-known restaurant, will find its familiar meatballs in voodoo sauce at National Anthem for $13. (That was a “Day One dish,” from the first Neighborhood Services restaurant on Lovers Lane. Badovinus says he’d be crazy if he left it off.)
The double cheeseburger at National Anthem, $18, is a smashburger with square-shaped patties. It’s not an Off-Site Kitchen redux. I had to ask.
The menu is a wild ride through whatever “American food” means. There are cheese enchiladas with New Mexico red salsa for $8; mussels diablo sourced from Bar Harbor for $17. Badovinus worked in a personal touch with the tempura green beans. The $8 appetizer comes sprinkled with Johnny’s Salt, from his home state of Washington. “My mom put it on my breakfast when I was a kid,” he says.
Separating the bar from the restaurant is a two-sided neon sign. Longtime Dallasites will remember when it hung in two of Badovinus’ shuttered restaurants, Tried and True and Off-Site Kitchen. Badovinus found it years ago in Kentucky, on a “bourbon adventure quest.”
Nearly all of the design elements have a story, like the mid-1970s Honda motorcycle, stationed above one of the booths. Badovinus bought it on eBay and rode it around Dallas for a few years until he decided to park it inside his house, near the fireplace.
Badovinus remembers when and where he bought many of the pieces inside the restaurant, but let’s not get too deep: Get a sandwich and a cocktail and just enjoy the amusement at National Anthem.
And say, can you see what’s coming next? National Anthem will have a restaurant above it, on the second floor of the building, opening in the next few months. Yet a third concept will open above that, on the rooftop, in 2022, Badovinus says.
National Anthem is at 2130 Commerce St., Dallas. It opened Oct. 6, 2021. Reservations are available on Resy.
