Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonathan and Michael Kovens.
Michael, please share your story with us.
We are a family owned and operated restaurant that started in the end of 2015. This has always been a dream of mine to open my own restaurant. Originally my parents and I started Jed’s (the parents have since retired) and we put everything we had into this place so we could finally have our dream come true. The name Jed’s is from the 3 original founders J-Jonathan, E-Estella, and D-Daniel. Jonathan and Estella have a combined 30+ years of restaurant experience and have always wanted to open a spot of their own. We had the same vision when it came to the menu, fresh never frozen ingredients with a true scratch kitchen. We call our food “Classic with a modern twist” and that is exactly what we have. Delicious homemade comfort food ranging from brunch, lunch and dinner. Some of our most popular items include our Cilantro Burger which we are mostly known for that is served on a Hawaiian roll with sautéed mushrooms and onions, fresh cilantro, Munster cheese and a house made garlic aioli. An Eggs benedict served with a shiner bock beer cheese sauce. Everything we serve is made in house including all of our sauces and salad dressings. We even have a scratch bar with fresh squeeze lime juice for margaritas and house made sweet n sour that puts our Long Island over the top. We recently came in 4th place overall in the annual bloody Mary festival out of the entire DFW metroplex with our delicious scratch recipe and were also the official Taco and Margarita of Dallas Cinco de Mayo 2017 beating names like Fuel City Tacos and El Ranchito. Since Estella and Daniel retired Jonathan took on a new partner his younger brother Michael and they have been an awesome team for the past year taking Oak Cliff by storm. The corner of Jefferson and Polk is said to be a “cursed corner” with a mass rotation of 9 different restaurants in this location in the last 20ish years. As of December 1st 2017 Jed’s will hit its 2 year anniversary making it the longest standing restaurant since Cafe Francisco in the 90’s. Jed’s offers awesome specials every day of the week including Kids Eat Free on Tuesdays, All day happy hour on Saturdays and $.99 Mimosas on Sundays. Check out our website at jedsgrillrestaurantdallas.com for more information.
Has it been a smooth road?
Like every start-up it has its difficulties. One of the biggest difficulties along this journey was coming over the reputation of the “cursed corner” This location had a lot of different restaurants and in fact has been a rotating restaurant since 1927, the year it was built. North Oak Cliff also has a lot to offer in the area of food so competing against some really awesome brands has been difficult but we have done a good job at it so far. I would say the biggest difficulty would be competing with Bishop Arts District. We are less than half a mile away from the border but defiantly off the beaten path. They are such a huge attraction and get so much outside business sometimes it is easy for people to look right past us but luckily by not being in there it gave us more of an opportunity to focus on the direct community. It made us more of a local hot spot and not a tourist attraction. We have a lot of regulars and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Dallas has really grown here recently and so has the food scene. Doing what we do is not for everyone and it is nowhere close to easy. I read about restaurants opening all the time and closing just as fast as they open. I have molded my career over the last 18 years to be where I am today between work and school and have put a lot of effort to get to where I am today. Dallas is an amazing city with lots of good food to choose from which makes the competition even greater. I would not recommend any one opening a restaurant unless you really know what you are doing. Too many people who say they know how to cook but have no business experience try to open a restaurant and ultimately fail, and I wish that upon nobody. It is a lot of work and takes a long time to see financial satisfaction so if you are ready for a hard road then go for it otherwise save your money.
Pricing:
- Monday Madness (LGBT night) $3 Margaritas and Martinis
- Tuesday Kids Eat Free
- Wine’d Down Wednesday $3.50 glasses of wine and $12 Bottles
- Thursdays $2 off all burgers
- All day happy hour Saturdays and $4 Frose
- $.99 Mimosas Sunday Fundays
Contact Info:
- Address: 1001 W Jefferson Blvd
Dallas, TX 75208 - Website: jedsgrillrestaurantdallas.com
- Phone: 469-291-5001
- Email: jedsgrill@gmail.com
- Instagram: @jedsgrill
- Facebook: facebook.com/JedsGrill
- Twitter: n/a
- Yelp: yelp.com/biz/jeds-grill-dallas-2
Image Credit:
All pictures taken by Jonathan Kovens
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