Victory Social in Dallas wants to serve you lunch and dinner — with Texas-sized options.
This new food hall in Victory Park has six counters serving six menus: burgers, soups and sandwiches, home cooking, pizza and pasta, brunch and Mexican food. It’s a something-for-everyone model aimed at office workers and condo dwellers in a dense Dallas neighborhood.
In the afternoons at Victory Social, the 12,000-square-foot space morphs into a traditional dining room, swapping counter service for happy hour specials and servers delivering food and cocktails.
In yet a third iteration, Victory Social can host private dinners in a 16-seat dining room attached to the kitchen. Here, chefs will serve shareable food passed around the table, or they can create several-course tasting menus for $150 to $200 per person.
“Some restaurants have to make their money at dinner,” said the food hall’s CEO, Kevin Lillis, gesturing to the high-end restaurants nearby in Victory Park.
Victory Social will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner — “21 meal periods” a week, he said.
The restaurant has been a nearly four-year project in the bottom floor of the EY building in Dallas.
The menus were created by Dallas chef Josh Harmon, who worked with Lillis previously when he operated a fried chicken stand called Birdie at the AT&T Discovery District. Lillis created that food hall, as well as many others across the country, including Crockett Hall in Fort Worth and the Todd English Food Hall at the Plaza in Manhattan.
“It’s a prominent concept,” Lillis said of the surge of food halls in recent years, but he acknowledges the flaws. Lifecycles have been short for other food halls in Dallas-Fort Worth. Lillis’ hope with Victory Social is to feed people all day, at all price points.
“Counter service doesn’t work for date night. For families. For brunch,” Lillis said. And he wants to try to serve those folks, too.
Birdie is one of the restaurants in Victory Social that Dallasites might recognize. Chef Harmon’s Closed on Sunday, a riff on Chick-fil-A’s fried chicken sandwich, was popular when Birdie had a stall in downtown Dallas. His warm potato salad topped with Japanese mayo and toasted Funyuns is another dish bound to get attention: Harmon made it on the TV show Restaurant Rivals on Food Network.
If Lillis can get customers in the door at Victory Social, it’s Harmon’s job to convince them to stay. Evening menu items like Harmon’s steak tartare show finesse, as customers will find an egg hidden inside and housemade burnt allium powder sprinkled on top.
Harmon’s menu ranges from Italian food to tacos to bao buns. Despite the options, Harmon’s plan is to keep food costs focused by utilizing a tight set of ingredients. The sofrito goes in deviled eggs, rice and salsa, for instance.
Bread comes from Main Street Bistro and Bakery in Grapevine, a gem owned by French chef Fabian Goury. Bagels come from Starship, another D-FW-based brand.
“There have been many midnight conversations between Josh and me,” Lillis said. “We have ambitious goals.”
Victory Social food hall opens Nov. 8, 2024 at 2323 Victory Ave., Dallas.
