With A Focus On Healthy Food Options And A Wide Array Of Pick-Me-Ups, Oliver Peck’s Newest Deep Ellum Venture Looks To Brighten Deep Ellum’s Indulgences.
Amidst an abundance of new food and beverage concepts opening in Deep Ellum, leave it to Oliver Peck and his discerning collection of collaborators to find unique gastronomical lanes still worth traversing.
The latest venture from the Dallas tattoo icon — a man already well-invested in this town and neighborhood — Tiki Loco is taking over the spot once famously reserved for the venerable pizzeria Zini’s (at 2639 Elm Street) to serve coffee, vegan food and Hawaiian shaved ice to a fast-changing retail strip.
First and foremost, the spot aims to fill the main drag Deep Ellum coffeehouse void left behind by the sudden closure of Drugstore Cowboy this past summer by bringing a focused coffee program to the entertainment district through a partnership with White Rock Coffee. The team-up is the first non-name franchise agreement from the well-liked East Dallas roaster.
Tiki Loco is also breaking new territory on the food side of its operations, too, with its vegan-focused menu and its Hawaiian shaved ice desserts. Each of these focuses are, somewhat shockingly, not currently available — at least not anywhere near on this scale or to this level of dedication — anywhere else in Deep Ellum.
Within a wholly transformed space that’s almost completely unrecognizable from how it looked under the watch of its previous tenant, the kitchen will push out vegan proteins doused in a variety of sauces in the form of tacos and flatbreads. The menu will also feature a selection of smoothies and juices filled with fruits, plant-based proteins and other healthy additives that are almost filling as a meal themselves — good, considering that a single smoothie can run anywhere from $9 to $12 a pop.
The only animal-based product you’ll find here is milk, which is kept mostly for the coffee bar, accompanied by almond, coconut, hemp, oak and soy alternatives.
The most unhealthy thing you’ll find here are the shaved ice cones, and that’s only due to the high-quality, sugary syrups. But thanks to the wealth of flavors to choose from to top the perfectly soft ice offerings, you won’t mind the inevitable sugar rush (and proceeding crash).
The shop is still currently in soft-open mode, with a grand opening slated for Tuesday, October 9. Following that celebration, the shop will be open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, with its hours extending to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. In time, the spot expects to stay open as late as 3 a.m.
Either way, the space’s colorful decor and friendly, laid-back atmosphere are a welcome addition to the rapidly changing Deep Ellum landscape. And if Peck’s track record and business savvy are any indication, odds are it will be a long lasting one.