In the early 1960’s Dallas had its own vision of the sultan’s life in a restaurant called La Tunisia. Like the television show, it was a highly caricatured endeavor, its menu encompassing a wide swath of ethnicities from India to Africa. The 7-foot African-American man wearing a tall fez stood outside of the landscaped front door. He dramatically opened the doors to reveal a stunningly elaborate tented cocktail lounge called The Sheik’s Tent where, as the copy on the back of the menu reads, “Veiled waitresses dressed as harem girls serve cocktails.” The space was designed and decorated by the creators of Disneyland. The ceiling draped with hand woven cloth and gave the room the feeling of dining in a great tent on the North African dessert.
The main dining room—The Pioneer Room—integrated the meeting of Texas and North Africa with its “common element of extensive cattle raising and ranching” theme. (Sorry, can’t find a picture.) The lighting system was way ahead of its time—the fixtures created a 24-hour light cycle.
La Tunisia was built in 1959 in a 140-acre development off of Harry Hines called Exchange Park. It was located next to the 32-lane Mickey Mantle Bowling Center. The owner, James F. Riggs was a Mesquite developer as well as restaurateur, he opened another restaurant, the London House in NorthPark in 1961. ( The London House’s first chef was a young man named Ewald Scholz, who would go on to be a famous Dallas chef). Managers included Jackson Reynolds and Eddie Southern. A former host Iqbal “Ike” Singh Ekhon left the restaurant after seven years to open Rajah’s Custom Clothiers at Hillcrest and Northwest Highway. Ike, who remained a resident in Dallas,
passed away in 2006.
By the late ‘60’s, the nomadic Dallas social scene at La Tunisia had packed up their camels and moved on and, by June 1972, the restaurant reopened as Arthur’s West, a steakhouse sibling to the original Arthur’s on McKinney.
