AFTER KNIFE, SPOON, JOHN TESAR PLANS TO OPEN SYRINGE, A STONER STEAK HOUSE

by Andrew Chalk

Knife at the Highland Dallas hotel may be closing but John Tesar isn’t through opening restaurants. “I am after the coveted Avner Samuel Award, for most restaurants closed before reaching social security eligibility” he says. 

He wants to be remembered for serving a broad cross-section of society so his next restaurant will be more avant-garde. Details are scant, but the rumor mill says that it will target the stoner crowd so long addicted to pizza. The food will be steak and seafood and Tesar says that he considered doing bottle service but worried he would smash one over Nick Badovinus’ head. “We never really finished the argument he started in 2011. Fucking pussy”.

To increase his visibility, Tesar will star in a new reality show on a channel nobody watches. To be totally original, the show will feature chefs competing for a chance to be Guy Fieri’s sous chef at his next burger place. In each episode, chefs complete tasks in order to gain more power for the next stage. In the first episode, the prize is the power to use unlimited ‘f’ words in future episodes, something that is thought to favor Tesar hugely. Tesar says he is immensely motivated to win, as the task in the second episode is to write a 500-word wikipedia entry on Leslie Brenner, his favorite restaurant critic.

Come the third episode, the producers really amp up the difficulty. Each chef must take a bankrupt brand, and successfully recreate it, opening its first location. “I plan to do Hooters” says Tesar, “and situate it in The Mansion on Turtle Creek. It was pretty much a breastaurant when I was there anyway”. 

Once back at Syringe he looks forward to exercising artistic license in his cooking. An exciting entrée is one he first created in his stint at the Laguna Cliffs Marriott during a strike by hospitality workers. A variant of the old English dish Spotted Dick, it is called Suck My Dick. However, he denied it is to be served as an amuse bouche.

Published April 1st, 2025.