He owns the city's oldest steakhouse, Dunston's Steakhouse, and he attributes the invention of Texas toast and candlelit light-ins to himself.
Dunston grew up in rural Alabama, but it wasn't long before his mother saved enough money working in a country cafe to move the family out of state to a big city with more opportunities. The city was decided on a coin flip. Heads was Dallas, tails was Miami.
His journey in the restaurant industry began when he was 15, washing dishes at the Topper Hamburger Stand and valeting downtown over the weekend.
"The Juke Box Man," whom Dunston had met during his weekend work, gave him a loan to open his first restaurant, The Silver Castle, on Oak Lawn Avenue. That led him to open the Wheel-in Drive-in in 1955. A decade later, the restaurant became Dunston's Steakhouse after Dunston installed open flame mesquite pits that took the restaurant's center stage, shifting the focus to fine dining and hospitality.
At this time, it was unusual for there to be a fire pit in the middle of a dining room. Dunston explains it through an Instagram reel:
"When I put the first pit in, it was the one [restaurant] on Harry Hines, and I built the pit in the middle of the dining room. People walked in and they never saw someone cooking steaks in the middle of a dining room, and it was just the talk of the town."
Around that same time, he figures he invented the Texas toast.
At the time, the restaurant was still serving breakfast (these days it's dinner service only) and Dunston would order unsliced loaves of bread from Golman Baking Co. in Oak Cliff. The baker had been in business for over 30 years and never had anyone order bread unsliced.
The thick slices of bread slowly became a Dallas phenomenon, and people would come in for breakfast just to have his toast. "That was probably in 1955. Nobody had ever had thick toast. Everybody used a thin toast or biscuits. This was just something different. I actually invented the Texas toast," Dunston reminisces via his Instagram reel.
Fifty years later Dunston's Steakhouse has become a cornerstone of Dallas history. Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines, used to dine here and the restaurant still serves his favorite drink, the Rare Breed Manhattan. Reba McEntire and other celebrities like Colleen Barrett, Lee Roy Jordan, Walt Garrison, Cliff Harris, Randy White and Carroll Shelby have all dined there as well.
The biggest testament to the resilience of Dunston's Steakhouse is how his restaurant began to host candle-lit dinners.
"I've always said I invented candlelight light-ins, but I did it in a strange way," Dunston explains in another reel. "The power company would turn my lights off because I didn't pay the bill, so we'd light the candles. I had a gas grill so we could still cook. The customers couldn't play the jukebox, so we just all sang."
Despite lights out, no music, the natural hurdles of operating a restaurant for 50 years and the pandemic, among plenty of other issues woven throughout, Dunston's Steakhouse still stands as a piece of Dallas history.
Asked the secret to running a steakhouse for so long, Dunston said it's about going that extra mile.
"If you give people their money's worth they'll be happy, but if you give them a little bit more they'll tell everyone they know! So we don't try to make a sale, we try to make a customer," Dunston told the Observer.
Dunston's 6-ounce, bacon-wrapped filet mignon, which comes with a baked potato and house salad for $18.95, will be remembered for many more generations.
Dunston's Steakhouse, 5423 W. Lovers Lane. Monday – Thursday, 11 a.m. – 9 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m. – 10 p.m.; Saturday, 4–10 p.m.; Sunday, 4–9 p.m.
Dunston's Steakhouse (original location), 8526 Harry Hines Blvd. Monday – Thursday, 11 a.m. – 9 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m. – 10 p.m.; Saturday, 3:30–10 p.m.; closed Sunday.
