Dallas chef Graham Dodds is opening a restaurant near the Bishop Arts District!

I’m kinda back home again,” says Dallas chef Graham Dodds of the new restaurant he’ll open this summer. The restaurant sits near Dallas’ Bishop Arts District and close to Bolsa, the local/seasonal restaurant which brought Dodds early acclaim.

“We’re converting a 110-year old home into a restaurant, which means lots of construction delays and permit issues, but we’re getting close to the finish line,” Dodds told me.

Wrap-around porch, regal center staircase to a library upstairs, big fireplace in the living room.

“The place has a soul,” says Dodds, whose been busy consulting for restaurants in the Hill Country and Dallas area since decamping from the Statler Hotel late last year.

“I’d been looking at this spot for many years,” says Dodds. “It’s an icon in the neighborhood because it used to be the mayor’s home back in the day. After he died, someone looked after it, but then that person died and the house sat vacant for many years. My (business) partners pitched an American Brasserie to me, and we loved the idea of converting the house into our restaurant.”

The name of the new place? “We’ll probably call it “The Mayor’s House,” says Dodds. The Mayors House is located at 635 North Zang Boulevard at Neely St, in the Kidd Springs neighborhood.

Dodds says his business partners on the Mayor’s House are A.J. Gilbert and Martha Madison, a husband-and-wife team of established restaurateurs who recently moved to Frisco from the Bay Area.

Of course, you know Martha Madison, right? Yep, Belle on “Days of Our Lives.”

The couple owns six restaurants in California and New York and leased the property from Jim Lake, who purchased the home four years ago and is morphing its bones into the restaurant.

“It’s taken that long to convert it into something nice instead of tearing it down or putting up an office building,” says Dodds.

The menu for the Mayor’s House is still in development, but Dodds says the food will fit the space. He’s leaning toward an American brasserie with some “signature items” (Randall’s biscuits, pickled veggies, something goat, I’d guess), plus a couple of nods to the owners’ favorite dishes, including fondue and fried pies.

“It’ll be a modernized old home where the small downstairs rooms are converted into small dining spaces. But we don’t want it to feel like a B&B,” says Dodds.

house photos courtesy of Graham Dodds