Vegan-owned Shoals Sound & Service in Deep Ellum, Texas slowly reopens with Texas COVID guidelines to now offer a fully vegan Latin-fusion menu
Omar Yeefoon, owner and operator of Shoals since its opening in 2017, has been vegan for a number of years. After parting ways with his former chef due to the COVID shutdown, faced a need for a kitchen overhaul. After meeting fellow Dallas-local vegan chef, Johnny Tran, known as The Corn Dog Guy with his vegan corn dog food truck, Yeefoon reopened the restaurant this past Friday as an all-vegan restaurant.
Before the shutdown, Shoals was known for their unique Latin-fusion food, which stemmed from a combination of Shoal’s previous Argentinian chef as well as Yeefoon’s cultural background from his father’s Trinidad upbringing. “We have a lot of Caribbean and Latin American flavors throughout our menu. We really wanted to make a few items that are really delicious to pair with our cocktail menu.”
The name Shoals comes from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where iconic artists like Etta James, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin recorded some of their hits. “We thought it was cool for us to look back at a similar divisive time in American history, as what we’re living in now (also at the start of Shoal’s in 2017)”, shares Yeefoon. “Muscle Shoals was an area where there was so much harmony between different races, people, and types of music. That feeling of inclusion was the big thing about Shoals. So we want to reflect that with our restaurant/bar: Come in, you belong here”, states Yeefoon.
As a place of inclusion, Yeefoon evaluated the Shoals menu after the COVID shutdown took effect. He wanted to ditch meat and dairy to reflect a more compassionate menu to all.
“It’s one thing to open a brand-new vegan restaurant, but it’s quite the gamble to take a non-vegan restaurant vegan,” Yeefoon notes. “I have been wanting to do this for awhile, but Dallas was always a little far behind in the culinary and business space to do so. It seemed at this point, after the Coronavirus hit, we needed to make a bigchange as a whole in the restaurant industry and moving to a plant-based menu seemed like the best way to do so”.
Even from a business standpoint, Yeefoon found that by replacing his popular mortadella sandwich, a very meat-heavy dish, the business was able to actually reflect a better cost analysis by using plants instead of meat.
Now the kitchen has been flipped upside down to reflect a flavorful menu including a shiitake mushroom ceviche with housemade plantains chips, fried temeph poboy, Guava Peanut empanada, various arepas, and much more to come!
“I believe there needed to be more of a focused vegan restaurant in Dallas that was finer dining for a better date night setup for vegans to enjoy”, shares Yeefoon. “Too often when going out, it’s hard to find an any decent vegan menu options. If I’m to be inclusive, I need to make sure that the food that we’re making is not just made to look like meat. We want the food to be focused on plants and fresh flavors-which is based on the Latin American food that I love”.
With the new staff that Johnny Tran and Omar Yeefoon brought in for this Shoals’ reboot, the restaurant plans to have limited hours and seating to ensure safety for all guests.
“We’re not trying to pack the room out”, states Yeefoon about his soft opening in the next month. “We are still very cautious, as I feel we all should be as we re-enter the dining world among COVID”.
Keep an eye on their social media for all updates.
Shoals Sound & Service, 2614 Elm St., Suite 110 (Deep Ellum).
