Loved by vegans and non-vegans alike, the all-plant-based Spiral Diner Dallas location closes for good after almost 15 years.
Known for its All-American diner style of vegan fare and its hip 1960s retro vibe atmosphere, Spiral Diner in Dallas, Texas is closing down.
In a social media announcement on August 8, 2022, the staff announced the restaurant’s closing, saying that the lease for the space was coming to a conclusion and that the other two locations of Spiral Diner, one in Fort Worth and one in Denton, would remain open. The post also invited patrons to visit the new Spiral Diner location scheduled to open in Arlington, Texas in 2023.
“Hey kids, we have something serious we need to discuss. This will be our last week open at our Dallas location. It’s not because we don’t love you; it’s just that our lease is over. We’ve been together for almost 15 years and have loved every damn minute of it. But all good things and 100 year old buildings must come to an end,” the post reads.
Since the early 2000s, the restaurant’s location at 1101 North Beckley Avenue in Dallas has been a destination for food lovers of all persuasions and a demonstration that cruelty-free living is possible and enjoyable.
For 15 years, the restaurant was both a safe-haven for people choosing the cruelty-free vegan lifestyle and a subversive decoy in the middle of Dallas that enticed people who eat animals into it’s hip and happening atmosphere through a familiar line up of menu offerings, only to sneak into their stomachs a protein-rich and delicious content of totally meat- and dairy-free fare.
The restaurant’s menu — including meat-free burgers that you could build-your-own; all-you-can-eat pancake breakfasts with animal-free sausage; cruelty-free tofu eggs and homestyle biscuits drenched in plant-based gravy; non-dairy tiramisu; eggless cakes; no-cow ice creams — made even the most ardent vegan opponent with opportunity objection disorder sit back, put down the fork after finishing off a plate and admit that the food wasn’t half bad.
For 15 years, the restaurant was somewhere where vegan 20-somethings could meet their parents and enjoy a night without asking the waitstaff what did and did not have animal products and feeling uncomfortable about holding everyone up.
For a decade and a half, large groups of office workers in nearby Downtown Dallas could meet at Spiral, and everyone could enjoy everything on the menu — no one just had to order a salad and a tea while watching everyone else dig in.
For five years short of two decades, couples with mixed ethics could go out to dinner without feeling a grudge toward each other about the choice of where to eat because everyone agreed that plant-based or not, Spiral hit the spot and no animal was killed for the occasion.
“We’ve been here for 15 years. It was a very difficult decision, but we very much have loved this building to death. It’s a 100 year-old building and the repairs needed are just not feasible things that we could do at this time,” said Samantha Ofeno, C.E.O. of Spiral Diner.
Spiral Diner was founded in 2002 by Amy McNutt, a person who adopted a vegan lifestyle of living while causing the least harm possible to all other sentient beings. The first Spiral location was a mere lunch counter near the Fort Worth Convention Center. People loved it, pushing her to find better accommodations for the crowds that wholeheartedly embraced her subversive menu in the heart of a city known as Cowtown because of its legacy of being the U.S. capital of cow, horse and mule exploitation markets throughout the late-1800s to the mid-1900s.
I would like to think that we’re leaving our customers in good hands in Dallas because within the 15 years that we’ve been here, there have been a lot of vegan businesses that have begun to pop up around us.
Samantha Ofeno, Spiral Diner C.E.O.
The Fort Worth location at 1314 West Magnolia Avenue opened in 2004, joined by the Dallas location in 2008. In 2017, Spiral Diner opened at 608 East Hickory Street in Denton, and for 2023, the newest location is in the works to open in Arlington.
Samantha says that Spiral Diner’s absence in Dallas doesn’t leave ethical eaters stranded. The vegan lifestyle has proved itself over the last two decades to be more than a fad — it’s a trending societal arch — and a growing list of vegan and vegan-friendly spots in Dallas can take on the crowd that Spiral leaves behind.
“I would like to think that we’re leaving our customers in good hands in Dallas because within the 15 years that we’ve been here, there have been a lot of vegan businesses that have begun to pop up around us — very close to us in the City of Dallas itself — and they are amazing vegan businesses” she says. “So, we don’t feel like we’re leaving anyone high and dry.
“We do feel like we have in a way helped pave the way for a lot of other vegan businesses that are super awesome and super successful that our customers can now enjoy even more. And hopefully our Fort Worth and Denton location aren’t far enough away for them to not make a trip out and come and see us there. And then yeah, when Arlington is open, hopefully they’ll make that short trip to come back and be regulars there.”
