▼ Dish Nicole Sternes and Chris Easter loaded up on honey buns for the State Fair of Texas. Kathy Tran A South DalLas family takes the fair’s top prize BY LAUREN DREWES DANIELS “I 12 12 s that it?” That was Nicole Sternes’ first question when her husband told her earlier this year of his idea for an entry in the Big Tex Choice Awards at the State Fair of Texas. “‘Is that it?’ Yes! This is the one that’s go- ing to win,” Chris Easter told her. “I guaran- tee you it’s going to win. It’s like my whole life wrapped in one dessert.” The dish was a Hostess Honey Bun dipped in funnel cake batter, deep fried, injected with caramel, smothered with peanut butter and covered in candy. Eas- ter thought the dessert looked like an is- land, with the peanut butter mimicking the sand. “So, then I put some Reese’s Pieces on it for people and put an umbrella over it.” A sweet, deep-fried sandy beach. Para- dise. Hence the name, Peanut Butter Para- dise. Easter was right. It was a winner. And oddly enough, it was based on a popular prison treat. Sternes, 46, and Easter, 45, own South- side Steaks & Cakes on Al Liscomb Way in South Dallas, which serves cheesesteaks, wings and funnel cakes. They met in their early 20s at a club in Dallas and dated a few years before marrying. Their son works at the restaurant, too, making it a true family business. Sternes, from West Dallas, graduated from South Oak Cliff High School, then the Uni- versity of Oklahoma. Owning a restaurant wasn’t the couple’s initial plan. “We came into the restaurant business by way of our nonprofit Opportunities Knock, where we do an after-school feeding program,” Sternes says. “Our first employees were at-risk youth through the Texas Workforce Commission and people from the neighborhood.” Over time, they made the space a full-ser- vice restaurant. Sternes worked at the Dallas Housing Authority but left to focus on grow- ing their business. Southside Steaks & Cakes is just steps from the fairgrounds. From the restaurant’s front door, you can see the large Ferris wheel on the horizon like a never-setting mechanical sun. Easter would sit outside his restaurant on a chair, look at the fair and dream about be- ing a part of it. The couple applied to be a vendor three years in a row but they were turned down each time. The application process is detailed, as the fair wants to make sure concessionaires are up to the task of feeding some 2 million people for 24 days straight. With some fine-tuning of their applica- tion, the fourth attempt finally got them a shot in 2021 at what can be a lucrative, but difficult, spot. That first season, Easter says, they just tried to keep their legs under them and fo- cused on learning the business for the long run. They were told the most important thing is to never run out of food. While man- aging their stand at the fair, Easter would also run back to the restaurant to participate in an online entrepreneurial mentoring pro- gram through Goldman Sachs. After the fair, business at the restaurant doubled, Sternes says, in part because more people knew about them from the fair. With one year under their belts, in 2022 Sternes and Easter were eligible to enter the Big Tex Choice Awards, arguably the biggest prize for fried fair food in the nation. Win- ning one of those three awards — for best taste either savory or sweet, or most creative — or even being a Top 10 finalist is huge. The Big Tex Choice Award finalists have their own map available for fairgoers looking for the best new foods to try. It’s the Michelin Guide of deep-fried food. “If you are on the Big Tex Choice Awards map, then your numbers will easily go up by as much as 100%,” says Brent Reaves, whose father, “Smokey” John Reaves, started work- ing at the fair in 1978, only the second Afri- can American concessionaire at the time. SEPTEMBER 29–OCTOBER 5, 2022 MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.comdallasobserver.com
