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Editor’s note: Good things happen even in the worst of times. Three years ago, the world as we knew it shifted from its axis as COVID-19 brought on a statewide stay-at-home lockdown. Thousands of North Texas businesses fell into pandemic oblivion. Other owners faced down their companies’ near-death experiences and came out in better shape today. This is one in a series of stories about five such business owners.
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Chris Easter and Nicole Sternes shut down their South Dallas restaurant for more than a month last fall to attend the State Fair of Texas.
No, the couple wasn’t bingeing on fair fare or riding rides.
The husband-wife co-owners of SouthSide Steaks and Cakes on Al Lipscomb Way — just a stone’s throw away from Fair Park — were making their second appearance as food-booth vendors.
They didn’t have enough employees to staff both the fair and diner, so they put SouthSide on the back burner, figuring that hungry hordes would be headed to their booth at the fair.
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Read other stories in this series
Dallas couple resuscitates Premier Transportation with a COVID-inspired tune up
D-FW’s Benny Black back in the fast lane converting Mercedes vans into mini-RVs
A presidential visit helps Dallas’ popular Rise soufflé restaurant rise again
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Almost on a lark, they’d entered Easter’s audacious creation, Peanut Butter Paradise, landing the Big Tex Choice Award for best taste in the sweet category before the fair opened.
“The media told us nobody had ever won on their first try,” said the 45-year-old Sternes. “It was a win for our whole community. People were congratulating us and patting us on the back because we’re young, we’re a couple and that contest is really a big deal.”
During the fair, they hired a rotating staff of about 30, who served up nearly 18,000 of the tricked-out desserts — $20 for one, $35 for two — along with their funnel cakes and Texas-style Philly cheesesteaks.
“Some [employees] lasted about two days and left because they couldn’t handle it,” Sternes said.
Peanut Butter Paradise is a monument to self-indulgence, built on a Duchess Honey Bun, dipped in funnel cake batter, deep fried (of course), injected with caramel syrup, slathered with peanut butter, ringed by Reese’s Pieces, and topped with Reese’s Miniature Cups and a tiny paper umbrella.
“One of my gifts is to be creative,” said the 46-year-old Easter, who used to be a jewelry maker. “This was the first time I got to showcase my skills in the food industry. I felt it was a winner as soon as I put it into the food contest. When we won, I told Nicole, ‘You know, we’re part of Black history.’”
None of this would have happened without COVID.
The couple, who live in DeSoto, had applied to the State Fair for a booth three times before, only to be turned down.
But in 2021, a longtime concessionaire with a dozen or so booths didn’t want to risk pandemic exposure, and six booths came up for grabs for new vendors. The State Fair selected Easter and Sternes to replace one in front of the steps of the Cotton Bowl.
“That was our golden opportunity,” Sternes said. “It was a blessing for us.”
Bringing Philly to Texas
The foundation of SouthSide Steaks and Cakes’ menu is Philly cheesesteaks with a two-fisted Texas spin: sliced beef or chicken smothered by jalapeños, onions, banana peppers, bell peppers and gooey melted cheese.
It’s also known for its chicken wings that come in 20 wet-wing flavors and 10 dry rubs, and its Texas-shaped funnel cakes that can be paired with all sorts of not-so-low-calorie sides.
Luckily, they don’t have to disclose nutrition information for a trip to paradise. But as near as Easter can calculate, it’s about 875 calories, give or take. By imaginative sourcing and bargain shopping, they now sell Peanut Butter Paradises for $12 a pop, $20 for two at the restaurant.
When asked about more “healthful” fare, Easter talks about the recently added Big Valley, a meatless option that stands nearly 4-inches tall with fried pickles, fried tomatoes, onion rings, special sauce and the usual burger toppings.
Using street lingo
“We call ourselves the Cheesesteak Trap because our food is addictive,” Sternes said with a laugh. “Trap is a word that we use in our culture that could be thought of negatively, but we try to put a positive spin on it.”
For the uninformed, a trap in street lingo means crack house.
“We’re in South Dallas near Fair Park. It’s low income, high poverty. It was a food desert before we opened,” said Sternes, who grew up in West Dallas and graduated from South Oak Cliff High School. “Coming from the community, we decided to trap it out. We took how we grew up with socio-economic struggles and put some fun into it.”
They also play trap music in the restaurant. This offshoot of hip hop started in the South in the 1990s, but is internationally mainstream these days despite its crack-related name.
A sandwich with fries is a five-dollar Nickel Pack — as in $5 worth of marijuana. A small sandwich with four wings is a Dime Sack — as in $10 of dope.
“We have police officers and judges coming in,” Easter said. “At first they didn’t want to blurt it out. But now they’re like, ‘I need two Dime Sacks!’”
Beyond the corner store
Back in the day, Easter’s mom, Betty Lou Easter, put a slice of American cheese on a honey bun and heated it up.
“She called it a ghetto cheesesteak,” Easter said. “It was years before I knew she was making a joke.”
When he was young, he used his free ticket from school to get into the State Fair but didn’t have money for food or rides. He sat on the steps and watched others having fun.
The first time his 76-year-old mother ever stepped foot on the fairgrounds was the day she came to see her son at the food competition. In the past, she couldn’t afford to take her six kids at one time, so she never took any of them.
“Seeing her there brought tears to my eyes,” Easter said.
As a boy growing up a few miles from Fair Park, eating out was grabbing a “meal” at the corner store.
“I think I was in the fourth grade when I said, ‘One day, I’m going to open a restaurant in South Dallas.’ I didn’t even know if we had a restaurant in South Dallas. That’s always been in the back of my head.”
His family moved to Richardson when he was still in elementary school, but dining out didn’t change for him.
When he was a 15-year-old sophomore at Richardson High School, his basketball coach took him to a Chili’s — his only restaurant experience until adulthood.
Trial by grill fire
There was another blessing in COVID disguise. The pandemic allowed the couple time to regroup and get their shaky business plan in order.
SouthSide Steaks and Cakes started out with the couple, family and volunteers handing out samples of cheesesteaks in its parking lot on the Fourth of July in 2016.
Easter could feel his childhood dream coming true. The couple had been in the after-school childcare business before opening their diner to add sales and cash flow.
They had to start from scratch to learn the restaurant business, even going on the internet to see how to operate a cash register. Their short-order side hustle was just beginning to turn into a real business when the COVID lockdown hit.
“I’m freaking out, because I’m a worrier,” she said. “I’m like, ‘Lord, what are we going to do? We have employees we have to pay. How are we going to pay our bills?’ Everything was going great, and all of a sudden, the whole city shut down.”
Easter went into temporary shock. “That morning when I heard that all restaurants would be closing, I was like, ‘Can that be possible? Is that for real?’” he said.
Then he went to work.
He created a small carry-out-only menu and made everything as contactless and as quick as possible.
“I had one person coming in two hours before the restaurant opened to polish the whole place down from doorknob to doorknob,” he said. “I’ve always pushed for the underdog. This time I was the underdog.”
A home away from home
“The main thing for us was funding,” Sternes said. “Thank God I’m in real estate. I had a couple of houses under contract, so we were able to stay afloat. And at the time, there was a big support for local African American businesses after George Floyd.”
They received money from the Paycheck Protection Program, but say they were turned down for assistance meant to help small businesses in South Dallas.
Easter’s biggest worry was his fear of bringing COVID home to the couple’s then 1-year-old. “I left my clothes at the front door and told my wife to hide our daughter, because as soon as she saw me, she would jump up on me,” he said. “So I rushed to the shower before she could see me.”
As COVID subsided, sales rebounded.
Sternes describes SouthSide as “a home away from home — a place to kick back, relax, while enjoying great company, music and food. We have wide demographics, from seniors to kids birthday parties.”
The couple runs a Christian nonprofit, Opportunities Knocking at the Door, that provides resources for at-risk youth and families. Some of their restaurant staff are from the nonprofit.
She loves to spread the gospel about their success, saying it’s important for people of all colors to see a successful Black couple who nearly hit rock bottom, but didn’t let adversity stop them.
“It’s such an uplifting story,” she said. “We didn’t know that this is where we’d end up.”
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