John Tesar’s Knife Burger Departs Legacy Hall

Last week, notably outspoken chef John Tesar announced that he was pulling his burger stall Knife Burger out of Legacy Hall, pointing to much bigger problems at the sprawling Plano food hall.

Over the past year, seven local chefs and restaurant owners, including Crossroads Diner owner Tom Fleming, Tim Byres, and Glazed Donut Works, have departed Legacy Hall, according to GuideLive. Both Fleming and Tesar say that their revenue-sharing agreements with Front Burner Restaurants’s Food Hall Co. subsidiary, the management company responsible for operating Legacy Hall, make it difficult for operators to turn a profit. Fleming also says that the company overstated the number of people walking through the Hall’s doors each day.

Earlier this year, Fleming shuttered Chez Dip, his short-lived French dip sandwich stall, at Legacy Hall. “There just weren’t enough people coming through. I’m not going to say they misrepresented, but they said there would be 5,600 to 6,000 a day,” Fleming told Dallas Morning News dining critic Michalene Busico. “There was just one day when we even came close to that.” In a Facebook post, Tesar elaborated on his beef with Front Burner Restaurants and Legacy Hall, citing bad parking options and “terrible management” as additional reasons for his departure.

As Guidelive notes, with the departure of Tesar and the other chefs, Front Burner Restaurants has taken over two of the Hall’s three floors entirely. They’re operating each stall and every bar on the premises, though more as-yet-unnamed operators are allegedly set to open at Legacy Hall in the coming months. Stay tuned for more details.

• John Tesar is the seventh local chef to exit Plano’s Legacy Hall [GuideLive]