Providing an intimate atmosphere with good food is the goal at Coal Vines, said Eric Faulkner, the owner of the Southlake restaurant.
“Joe Palladino is the one who started Coal Vines back in 2006, and he wanted it to be like a speakeasy-themed-style restaurant,” he said.
The speakeasy theme runs throughout the restaurant as a portrait of jazz singer Frank Sinatra hangs on the wall behind the bar and songs by Sinatra play throughout the eatery.
The kitchen features a coal-fired oven, which is used to bake the eatery’s New York-style pizzas, and it also bakes a number of pasta dishes.
“I always tell people coal for the pizza, vine for the wine,” he said.
Faulkner, who started out as the general manager of Coal Vines under local residents Paul and Lisa Pardo nearly three years ago, bought Coal Vines in February. Since then, he has made a few small changes to the menu and the restaurant itself. One minor change was to remove a table to create more space, as he said some customers felt too close to the table next to them.
Faulkner said he wanted the diners to be able to be “intimate with each other but not with the other people.”
The restaurant is popular for dates and other evenings out, Faulkner said. For customers who are dining together but cannot agree on a type of pizza to order, Coal Vines offers the chance to have two different sets of toppings on the same pie.
Some of the pizzas offered include the margherita pizza ($16 small, $18 large), which features olive oil, fresh tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and basil, and the spicy meatball ($17 small, $19 large), which is topped with sliced meatballs and a spicy habanero pizza sauce.
“Our larges are only $2 more than our smalls,” Faulkner said. “The small is a 14-inch with six slices, and the large is a 16-inch.”
The restaurant also offers some classic Italian appetizers, such as fried calamari ($11), which is served with marinara sauce, and bruschetta ($8), which is garlic-toasted rounds of bread that are topped with diced fresh tomatoes, basil and fresh mozzarella as well as balsamic.
Faulkner has also instituted a new special. Anyone who purchases a $125 bottle of Caymus Cabernet receives a pizza free of charge.
Overall, Faulkner said he enjoys seeing the people who come in.
“We have a lot of people that come in that are married that have come on their first date here,” he said.
He said he is also happy to give back to the community by sharing 10 percent of the restaurant’s net profits with a nonprofit organization, a practice he started in March.
