Bones to Pick

Numbers suggest the business is booming and will continue to surge in the foreseeable future, further straining labor woes. The National Restaurant Association is forecasting a 5 percent jump in national restaurant industry sales to $537 billion nationwide. Texas is equally bullish. The Texas Restaurant Association is predicting a 6.9 percent surge in 2007 sales to $32 billion. "The last three quarters have really been booming here in North Texas," says Blaise Hadley, president of the GDRA and regional vice president of Outback Steakhouse. "Comparative sales over last year have been really strong here, especially over the last two quarters."

Yarbrough doesn't buy such optimism. He says the market gives him the willies right now, what with the closings and shifts and influx of national nameplates. It's difficult to tease out what's really going on under the surface, he says.

The steak market may be a leading indicator. In addition to the demise of Smith & Wollensky, Wichita-based Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon has been beset with turmoil over the past year resulting in a $586.1 million buyout by the Dallas-based private equity firm Lone Star Funds. The publicly traded Lone Star Steakhouse, which operates Lone Star Sullivan's, Del Frisco's and Texas Land & Cattle steakhouses plus one Frankie's Italian Grille, cited a slate of negative market trends—including demographic shifts, higher gas prices and interest rates, market saturation and increases in taxes and labor costs—in its decision to put the company on the block.

Nevertheless, big pricey steak continues to pummel the North Texas landscape. N9NE Group, a Las Vegas steakhouse/nightclub partnership founded by Scott DeGraff and Michael Morton, is slipping a N9NE Steakhouse into the Victory project. Morton is the son of Arnie Morton of Morton's Steakhouse fame and brother of Peter Morton, founder of Hard Rock Café. Morton's is also reportedly scouring the Dallas landscape for another steakhouse to keep its West End location company: this after shuttering its Addison location in 2003 after it was open for nearly a decade.

And Popolos owner Steve Hammond has launched Park Cities Prime—billed as a boutique steakhouse, or the finest of the finest—in Preston Center.

"The price of prime beef has hit all-time highs," says Outback's Hadley. Let the shaking begin.