Eat Drink D-FW: Things that scare us in restaurants

After a freezing winter storm shut schools, cut power and cancelled or delayed flights, Texas and other Deep South states were slowly thawing as weather warmed. Conditions in North Texas were returning to normal after a winter weather blast packing snow, ice and wintry mix disrupted the region Thursday into Friday; In other news, firefighters scrambled Sunday to make further progress against wildfires that have destroyed thousands of homes and killed 24 people in the Los Angeles area as forecasters again warned of dangerous weather with the return of strong winds this week. At least 16 people were missing, and authorities said that number was expected to rise; work on $370 million high-rises planned in Uptown Dallas is scheduled to begin later this year. Chalk Hill Towers is a mixed-use development set between North Harwood Street and Harry Hines Boulevard; And Klay Thompson added another milestone to his long list of accomplishments in the NBA. The Mavs sharpshooter reached the 16,000-point mark in Sunday’s game against the Denver Nuggets at American Airlines Center. Thompson was key to a hot start for the Mavericks, going 5-for-7 from the field and 4-for-5 from 3-point range as Dallas raced out to a comfortable first-half lead. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to secure the win. The Mavs led by as many as 19 in the third quarter but Denver rallied in the fourth to beat Dallas 112-101. The teams will meet again on Tuesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drivers in North Texas should be extremely careful Friday morning after the region was blasted with wintry precipitation and below-freezing temperatures overnight, when the region is expected to face the worst travel impacts. Caution should also be maintained throughout the day, as the area could see black ice in the evening and overnight. And any remaining water on roadways could refreeze when overnight temperatures are forecast to drop into the teens. Several counties in the region — including Collin, Dallas, Denton, Kaufman and Tarrant — also remain under the winter storm warning until midday Friday; In other news, Macy’s is pulling back in North Texas. The storied department store is shuttering five sites in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as part of a broader plan to close more than 60; Jerry Jones and Mike McCarthy met for a third consecutive day about the head coach’s fate with the Cowboys, two people with knowledge of the process told The Dallas Morning News. Discussions are expected to continue today. McCarthy’s five-year contract with the club ended in the wake of the team’s 23-19 loss to Washington to end the regular season; The Texas Longhorns will face the Ohio State Buckeyes in the 89th Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic tonight at AT&T Stadium. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Dallas Morning News food team discusses the hottest restaurant openings of 2025 in D-FW. They also dive into comments from readers on what they want to see more and less of in the North Texas dining scene. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It will be cold with periods of snow and sleet in Dallas today. Between 2 and 4 inches of snow is expected with a high of 36 and a low of 32. The snow will continue overnight and linger into Friday morning; With forecasts calling for a mixture of snow and sleet, shoppers scrambled this week to stock up on food and winter-weather supplies like outdoor faucet covers, firewood and portable generators. In some stores, they found picked-over produce and nearly bare shelves. At a Whole Foods in Fort Worth, delivery trucks were delayed due to winter weather elsewhere. A cashier at a Kroger in Dallas’ Oak Lawn neighborhood said they were restocking the shelves as quickly as possible; airlines and airports are doing their best to prepare for the wintry weather. Airports are pretreating and clearing the tarmac, runways, driving lanes and pedestrian walkways. DFW Airport and Dallas Love Field have taken steps in advance of the storm. A Love Field spokesperson said the airport has four snow plows, a tanker and two trailers to disperse over 40,000 available gallons of liquid deicer, and dump trucks to spread over 166,000 available pounds of solid deicer. In other news, Texas lawmakers vowed Tuesday to hold Big Tech accountable for failing to protect minors from harm on social media, including exposure to pornography and sex trafficking. And three Dallas-based firms are partnering to develop a $1 billion data center campus south of Dallas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

SportsDay Insiders Kevin Sherrington and David Moore discuss [3:12] Mike McCarthy's status and the odds that he'll be back as the Cowboys' head coach. David notes that they might have gotten a little arrogant thinking that Tyler Guyton could duplicate what Tyler Smith did before him, and the mistakes made overall in the last two drafts impacted this disappointing season. [29:55] Kevin says Texas will have to play its best game of the season to beat Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl semifinals, which might be the actual championship game. [42:57] The guys also discuss what impact the Mavs' injuries will have on the trade deadline and whether it'll be a problem heading toward the playoffs.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It will be mostly sunny but chilly today with a high of 42. Clouds will move in this evening with a low of 30 expected. Of course the focus is really on tomorrow’s weather with a wintry mix of snow and sleet forecast for North Texas and temperatures hovering around the freezing mark all day. Dallas officials urged residents to stay off city streets once wintry weather hits North Texas as soon as late Wednesday and focus on protecting their pipes, pets, plants and people. Officials overseeing roads, public safety, homelessness response and other city infrastructure say preparations for snow and ice began Sunday amid frigid temperatures and are expected to ramp up starting Wednesday. ERCOT, the electrical grid operator for most of Texas, has issued a weather watch scheduled to last through Friday “due to forecasted cold weather across the ERCOT region, higher electrical demand, and the potential for lower reserves.” In other news, the U.S. Department of Justice has expanded its lawsuit over price fixing in the rental housing market, accusing a Dallas-based apartment management firm and five of the nation’s largest landlords of participating in algorithmic pricing schemes that drove up rents. And Jay Hartzell didn’t set out to leave the University of Texas’ flagship campus for a smaller private college in Dallas. But after SMU board members began aggressively recruiting him for their soon-to-be-vacant president job, Hartzell listened.  He will take over at SMU in June, capping the 30-year tenure of R. Gerald Turner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get ready for a cool down today and the rest of the week. Clouds will roll into the area with a high of 40 today. The overnight low will be 26. The weather is the big story as the temperature will drop in the coming days with the possibility of a ‘measureable snow’ beginning on Wednesday evening and continuing into Thursday. The rain-snow mix is expected to last into Friday, according to the National Weather Service in Fort Worth. A forecast Monday afternoon showed some areas of North Texas getting between 2 to 5 inches of snow with isolated areas further west possibly getting up to 8 inches of accumulation during the winter storm; Fans traveling to Arlington this week for the Cotton Bowl game may be met with wintery weather conditions. The Cotton Bowl at AT&T Stadium will be the site of the College Football Playoff semifinal game between Texas and Ohio State, which kicks off Friday at 6:30 p.m.; well into the fall semester, New Hope Christian Academy in Plano abruptly announced it would cease operations, sending families scrambling to find a new school and leaving teachers unpaid and confused. Former staffers say the school had about 75 students from pre-K through 12th grades; And according to Southern Living magazine, Babe’s Chicken Dinner House is one of the best Southern restaurants in the country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Plenty of sunshine on the way today but it will be significantly cooler than it was over the weekend with a high of only 38. The low tonight will be 24. Chances are rising that North Texas could see some form of wintry precipitation this week. The cold is projected to stay over the area all week, and temperatures are expected to rise above freezing most days before falling again each evening. According to the National Weather Service in Fort Worth, a forecast discussion on Sunday mentioned that there is a “high confidence in wintry precipitation” from Wednesday night through Friday morning with a “70-80% chance of at least measurable, or a tenth of an inch of snowfall accumulations.” The highest chance of precipitation is Thursday night into early Friday, but the chance of precipitation starts as early as just after midnight Thursday. Snow and ice could accumulate Friday morning, but it is unlikely to last for a prolonged period as the forecast high that day in Dallas is 43; At First Baptist Dallas, construction workers have embarked on the painstaking work of demolishing and preserving high-value pieces of the church’s historic sanctuary, which was heavily damaged in a July fire; And the Cowboys’ season finally ended Sunday at AT&T Stadium against their long-time rivals the Washington Commanders. The Commanders defeated the Cowboys 23-19 as the season ended in dramatic fashion when Marcus Mariota connected on a 5-yard touchdown pass to receiver Terry McLaurin with three seconds left. The Cowboys finished the season 7-10. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mostly cloudy in the Dallas area today. The sun will peek through on occasion with a high temp of 62. The clouds will stick around this evening with a low of 51. Saturday will be cloudy as well with a chance for an afternoon thunderstorm. The high and low will not differ more than a few degrees in the low 60s. Sunday will be a bit of a transition day. Mostly sunny skies with a high of 64 and then as the day progresses into the evening and early morning hours of Monday, the temperature will plummet into the low 20s, setting up a chilly start for a cold week ahead. Investigators are probing why Shamsud-Din Jabbar who bragged about his Beaumont roots and militant work ethic went from working in real estate to praising ISIS just before he launched a deadly attack in New Orleans. In other news, the suspects at the center of the New Year’s terror attack in New Orleans, and another in front of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, both got their vehicles through an app-based car rental service called Turo. Also, November home sales in Dallas-Fort Worth showed the strongest year-over-year improvement since mid-2021 — but those who watch the market closely have some concerns. And, the Texas Longhorns are gearing up for their Jan. 10 showdown with Ohio State in the semifinals at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tiger Bech, the brother of Texas Christian University wide receiver Jack Bech, has been identified as one of the victims of the deadly truck attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day. He was 27. In other news, four people were killed in a vehicle crash in Mesquite early Wednesday and a man faces charges. Four people were standing outside the car when another vehicle headed east “drifted onto the shoulder” and hit all four people and the disabled car; one person was killed and three others were wounded Wednesday afternoon during a shooting in Red Bird. Officers were dispatched about 2:40 p.m. to the 2900 block of St. George Drive, near Chaucer Place, where they found four people had been shot; And the Texas Longhorns have punched their ticket to the College Football Playoff semifinals for a second straight year. Andrew Mukuba intercepted Arizona State quarterback Sam Leavitt in the second overtime of yesterday’s Peach Bowl to give Texas a 39-31 win at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. The Longhorns will advance to the Cotton Bowl at AT&T Stadium in Arlington and will face Ohio State who beat Oregon last night in the Rose Bowl. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices