Two restaurants from the past

Lobello's near Preston & NW Highway. Exactly where? Which quadrant of the intersection?
I notice there's an open area just west of an Ebby Halliday realtor office. Was that where Lobello's was?

Italian Village on Oak Lawn but exactly where?

[flashbackdallas.com]

And for Lobello's, it may depend on which version when:

[www.dmagazine.com]

Apparently there were multiple versions. It is difficult to tell exact locations from the posts.

Dave McNeely



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/13/2022 08:21AM by old man from dallas.

Lobellos was located in the Southwest corner of Preston and NW Highway
[www.dmagazine.com]

Peter, thanks. I missed that in the article, but will trust you that it is there.

However, the article DOES mention multiple versions, some of which were in operation simultaneously and at different locations in the Preston Center area. Perhaps not all were called "Lobello's," so there's that.

Interesting regarding Italian Village: Even when it operated under that name, it offered a wide variety of cuisines, including Chinese (whatever was meant by that) and grilled meats.

Italian Village and its various iterations were billed as being "The finest restaurant in the South." I have seen references to "the South," regarding Dallas in other, mainly businesses but also some government entities, from that era, up until the 1960s, then they seem to disappear. I grew up in Dallas, from the mid-fifties to early sixties, and lived there for a while after. I didn't, nor did my family and friends, generally think of it as being in the South. We just thought of it as being in Texas.

Thoughts on this? I do know that Dallas had a really big KKK element in the early 20th century, and that everything was segregated, including schools. African-Americans were definitely discriminated against. I even remember seeing businesses that had rest rooms for "Gentlemen," Ladies," and "Colored," with the last being one for both sexes. Others of course had no facility for African-Americans at all. And I did not go to school with African-Americans until college at UT Arlington starting in 1963. I was foolish enough in those days to spend a part of my day playing cards, poker and bridge specifically, for money. An African-American fellow gambler took a part of my money on some occasions. I soon learned not to play at all, of course, noting the effect it had on both my finances and my academic success.

Back to the Dallas being in the South: I also recall a discussion with a sister-in-law from New York about restaurants. I mentioned some restaurant that served all the fresh hot bread one wanted, starting before the dining order was taken, and that that used to be common in restaurants, but seemed to have gone by the wayside. My sister-in-law opined that it might have been a common practice in the South, but she did not recall it elsewhere. I said that I didn't really know about the South, not having lived or spent time there. She looked at me oddly, and said that she thought I'd always lived in Texas. I said that she was correct, and that I had never lived in the South. It took a bit of explaining about physical environmental differences, cultural differences, and just general attitudes of many people, with the at the time fact of very few Hispanic people in the South, but many in Texas.

But it is true that the original migrants from the U.S. to Texas when it was Mexican were mostly from the South, and they came with their attitudes and culture. The state just evolved away from that, I suppose, though not absolutely.

Dave McNeely



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2022 09:49PM by old man from dallas.

There's an image on an old ebay listing (may need to scroll down) [www.ebay.com]

"the article DOES mention multiple version"
actuallythe article said the following. was not unusual for restateurs to operate several restaurants many with different names
"Lobello Jr. had also operated several restaurants before joining his father in the restaurant business."