LOGAN SQUARE — The husband-and-wife owners behind Flat & Point have closed the BBQ-focused restaurant and are reopening the eatery as Dorothy’s Bistro, a neighborhood spot serving a wider range of Midwestern-inspired dishes and house-made bread.
In navigating the pandemic shutdown and shift to carryout, Flat & Point’s owners Brian and Taylor Bruns launched a successful baking operation, selling bagels at local farmers markets.
The owners have decided to take Flat & Point, 3524 W. Fullerton Ave., in a more personal direction and put less of an emphasis on BBQ, with the eventual goal of opening a standalone bakery.
Dorothy’s Bistro is a tribute to one of Brian Bruns’ biggest influences, his grandmother Dorothy.
“We believe this name better embodies the true heart and soul of our restaurant, and our future bakery,” the owners said in a news release.
Dorothy’s Bistro opens Friday in Flat & Point’s Fullerton Avenue storefront. Its rotating menu, inspired by French, German and Austrian cuisine, includes lasagna with offal bolognese, a nod to a dish Brian Bruns ate growing up in the western suburbs, and choucroute garnie, or dressed sauerkraut.
The restaurant will still serve some BBQ, including smoked ribs and pork belly, but it will have a broader, bistro-style menu, the owners said. Many of the dishes will include freshly baked bread. There will also be house-made pastries.
Brian Bruns, an alumnus of fine dining restaurants Spiagga and Tru, said the offerings are a better reflection of his culinary roots and aspirations.
Flat & Point started as a BBQ pop-up at Fullerton Avenue beach, specializing in pork belly and brisket tacos.
But when the owners opened the Logan Square restaurant in 2019, the concept “was not entirely clear,” they said in the release. Flat & Point offered BBQ, but in the style of a fine dining restaurant, serving dishes like Snake River wagyu brisket and beets for $28.
“Over the years, we found ourselves explaining that we weren’t a BBQ restaurant. People came thinking they were going to get a slab of ribs, and it wasn’t that,” Brian Bruns said.
Dorothy’s Bistro is a casual counter-service restaurant that accepts walk-ins. Brian Bruns said they’ve been having trouble retaining staff during the pandemic, so they ditched sit-down service for a more casual approach.
“We want our neighborhood restaurant to be open to our customers to spontaneously pop-in and enjoy a casual and comforting dinner with friends and family,” the owners said in the release.
On top of Dorothy’s Bistro, Brian Bruns said they plan to open a separate bakery and bagel shop within a year, hopefully in Lakeview or Lincoln Park. In the meantime, they’ll continue to sell bagels year-round at Green City Market as the new concept takes shape, he said.
Unlike Flat & Point, which was named after components of brisket, Dorothy’s Bistro’s name is personal.
Brian Bruns said he developed a love of cooking as a kid experimenting in his grandmother Dorothy’s kitchen.
“She let me mix whatever I wanted, make as big of a mess as I wanted, and have fun. It was pure joy for me,” he said in the release. “Shortly after I would jump off the chair, exhausted, and be carted off to take a nap. When I woke up, there was always a plate of cookies or brownies on the counter top (which was meticulously clean), and everything was put back where it came from. She always let me believe I made those cookies or brownies from my ‘recipe’ and those things made everyone around us happy, which I loved.”
The restaurant finally mirrors that joy, Brian Bruns said.
“It felt right to me that for the first time in running this restaurant a lot of things we put on our menu is a play on something I grew up eating or had a nostalgic memory of. All of that started with my grandmother,” he said.
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