Greg Kalina and Thomas Dritsas are quite at home with the upscale steakhouse environment. Kalina was a former regional manager at Del Frisco’s, and Dritsas, former vice president of culinary. When the opportunity arose to build a new restaurant with partners Paul and Lisa Pardo in Colleyville, they looked to carry on the quality of their work at Del’s — but with a more down-to-earth atmosphere.
Kalina and Dritsas took some time to chat with us about Stone House, their new American restaurant located along Colleyville Boulevard.
FW: What eventually led you out of Del Frisco’s and into creating Stone House?
GK: When the pandemic hit, they put all the regional directors into a store as GMs. It reminded me how much I really like working inside four walls.
I met my two partners now, Paul Pardo and Thomas Dritsas, at the [Stone House] property, and they showed me around. I immediately fell in love, and I think anybody who sees it will. The deal sealer was Chef Thomas. He’s just an amazing culinary talent. I had the good fortune of working with Thomas for 14 years at Del Frisco’s. I know exactly what he brings to the party.
FW: So, Thomas, what are you bringing to the party?
TD: We’re picking from the Southwest — Texas, New Mexico, all the way up to Colorado; we’re doing Mississippi and Louisiana. That’s kind of the influence and inspiration. So, we have things like shrimp and grits. A salmon with smoked tomato butter sauce. Some steaks and chops, all hand cut in-house. Blue crab empanadas, where we’re bringing the crab out of the Gulf. We wanted to glamorize it a little bit. Have approachable, fun food.
FW: Approachability has been a big deal in the creation of Stone House. How will it be different from the vibe at Del’s?
TD: We’ve built the concept to have repeat business. Known as a community or neighborhood restaurant instead of the special occasion restaurant that you can bend your black card with.
We want to be portion approachable because people like to nosh — they don’t like to eat big anymore. The steaks are smaller cuts. So, we have an 8-, a 12-, and a 14-ounce, versus at Del’s, it was the 24-ounce, the tomahawks, and the 32-ounce. Then all of the desserts and everything were bigger than life, right?
[At Stone House], appetizers probably range from $8 to $12; entrées range from $18 or $17 to $39. That’s the highest price item. We have nothing over $40.
GK: One of the things we never want to hear is “pretentious.” There’s some polish now; you have little pops of luxury. The property has a little bit of a California feel to it, so it would be an approachable restaurant with elegant touches.
FW: Of course, I have to ask what it’s like opening a restaurant in the middle of a pandemic.
GK: We’re working on creating a safe environment. Everybody’s in masks, sanitizing stations all over the restaurant, disposable menus — all of the protocols that, for now, are the new normal. I think we’re blessed by the fact that we do have a spacious patio to help us offset any seats that we may lose in our main dining room, just to practice social distancing.
There’s a lot of us in the business that were saying all along, when restaurants started closing during COVID and staying closed for a very long time, if even reopening at all, that as we come out the other side of this, there would be some opportunity. I don’t think, in this day and age, there’s ever a perfect time to find the opportunity. But this one feels really good.