Cry Wolf Has Closed

Cry Wolf in East Dallas is sadly no more. Kathy Tran

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Cry Wolf, the East Dallas enclave for inventive food served in a laidback setting, has closed, according to a Facebook post from chef de cuisine Mike Stites.

"I loved this place with all my heart and put my heart and soul into it. We did a lot of cool things and fed a lot of happy people. I will miss Cry Wolf dearly," Stites wrote in his post.

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Chef de Cuisine Mike Stites confirmed Cry Wolf's closing in a Facebook post Monday evening.

via Facebook

The closing shouldn't be for a lack of accolades. In our review earlier this year, we wrote that chef Ross Demers had created a restaurant that blended edgy cuisine with an unpretentious attitude, making for a combination we couldn't get enough of. We named Cry Wolf one of our Top 100 restaurants and selected Demers as Dallas' best chef in our annual Best Of Dallas issue.

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Ross Demers and Mike Stites had turned Cry Wolf into one of Dallas' most creative yet laidback restaurants.

Kathy Tran

On Sunday, we saw a post on Reddit that claimed Google reviews for Cry Wolf were showing it had closed, but reservations were still being accepted online. In the comments, other Redditors shared their experiences, including one Redditor who wrote that they made a reservation for Saturday night, only to arrive to find "the doors were locked, but the inside is completely set up for food service."

The sudden closing feels eerily similar to the end of Demers' time at On The Lamb in 2016. The restaurant initially termed the closure temporary, the result of a kitchen fire, but we later learned that Demers had left due to disagreements with ownership about the restaurant's direction. With Cry Wolf, Demers was the owner and the chef, so we're as shocked as anyone with this latest closure.

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Cry Wolf had an ever-changing menu but always tried to keep oysters on the menu.

Kathy Tran

We reached out to Demers for a comment for this story, and will update if we hear back. In the interim, Stites said that he would like to rent the spot and start his own restaurant, but didn't provide a timetable.

In the meantime, we can only speculate as to the reasons around the closure. Cry Wolf was an intimate spot, with seating for around 30 diners at a time. It's possible the costs of running a restaurant could only be recouped by serving more people, something that wasn't possible in the limited space. Cry Wolf had also struggled with issues with the building, and had closed for a week last June after a small kitchen fire required repairs and recertification from the city before the restaurant could reopen.