Eno’s Pizza Tavern was an early part of the Bishop Arts District renaissance, housed in a cozy two-story space on the main drag. It’s a family restaurant that doesn’t feel like a family restaurant.
Photography by Lauren Allen
The bar is the centerpiece at Eno’s, and chalkboards highlight wines by the glass and beers on tap. Wooden floors, brick walls and ample seating welcome in guests for date night, family dinners or a casual lunch.
The pizza achieves that cracker-thin style and features farm-to-table ingredients. Toppings on their specialty pizzas include locally sourced pork belly, pancetta, sport peppers, fennel, artichokes, parmesan, mozzarella and goat cheese.
In a lot of ways, Eno’s is reminiscent of the Sunday nights after church when the Spillers family would pile into the car and set out on a mission: finding the best cracker-thin crust pizza in Dallas.
“We found a few niche spots throughout the Metroplex, and then some of those changed over time, but Eno’s is a nod to our childhood,” co-owner Shane Spillers says.
Spillers was born and raised in Dallas. After graduating high school, he completed his degree in information and operations management from Texas A&M University, which makes him a “huge nerd,” he says. He came back to Dallas, where he spent nearly a decade working at the Public Policy Research Institute, Deloitte and Ernst & Young. Spending much of his time travelling for work, he felt he was losing touch with his community in Dallas.
That was until his family opened Eno’s in 2008, as the Great Recession forced small businesses to close. His parents, interior designers Allen and Donna Spillers, spent much of their time working in and around restaurants. His brother Matthew, who trained at the Culinary Institute of America, helped guide the menu. In fact, the name comes from Matthew’s study abroad trip to Italy, where he fell in love with the concept of an enoteca.
“In Italy, this is a place where locals go to gather to drink the best stuff that they can get access to beer, wine — mostly wine — and the best local-produced food,” Spillers says. “So everything is centralized, localized, and it’s all about community and celebrating the things that they do all in their backyard. And that’s really what Eno’s is.”
Cracker-thin style pizza. Craft beer. Community. That was the Spillers family recipe for Eno’s.
“I give credit to my parents. My dad passed earlier this year, and it’s just my mom now, but without their vision and willingness to partner with my brother, who was the culinary genius behind what we did, Eno’s would not be an experience in the same way,” Spillers says.
Before diving into the restaurant industry, Spillers took his experience as a self-proclaimed foodie and aimed to see the other side of the table. He worked as a server for about five weeks, which he says was just enough to learn about the job — and that he was not good at it.
“Making the transition to the restaurant industry, I was able to learn what I needed to learn,” Spillers says. “It’s like a duck gliding over water. There’s a lot of hustle beneath, right? You can’t really see what’s going on. And all you really see at the surface is this beautiful thing that’s happening. And that’s, to me, what hospitality is like when it’s done well, and I fell in love with that. I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about people in that process.”
Over the next few months, his family began to ask him for advice on the business and financial side of things.
“I had the opportunity to help them answer some questions and really think about some things. And that opened the door to really understanding that, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s a real need for this business, this hospitality business, this pizza concept,’ to really dial in a few key things that they were just not aware of that I could help out with,” Spillers says. “I was like, ‘Listen, I’m looking to try to change my career path.’ And so I made a pitch to join the family business.”
Spillers delved deep into the restaurant world in Bishop Arts, leaving the full-time corporate world in 2010. He co-founded Oddfellows, a now-favorite brunch spot, that year. He launched the short-lived brew-focused Union Bear in 2012 in the West Village.
Still co-owners with his mom, he says moving into the family business from the corporate world was fun, but a big shift.
“It was exhilarating, because now I feel like I’m actually doing something to better the community,” Spillers says. “It was just like, I know the next best step that I need to take, and it’s going to be joining the family business, not really knowing, like, one year, three years, five or 10 years beyond that. But it was just a very clear, active, moving forward in the right direction.”
From the get-go, Eno’s included community events in their operations. One of Spillers’ favorite events is iBike Rosemont, a partnership with the Rosemont Dad’s Club.
“It’s the coolest thing in the world. You have 100, 150 kids and their dads or parents riding from Rosemont to Eno’s, where they’re going to get a free root beer float if they just show up on their bicycle,” Spillers says. “Our staff is super excited about it. There are T-shirts that are printed, but you’re not going to see this in the newspaper. You’re not going to see it on social media. You’re not going to see it anywhere, unless you’re a part of that close-knit community.”
Eno’s also partners with local elementary schools for a rotating art wall inside the restaurant.
“Oak Cliff is just incredibly special. And it’s not without the intentionality of a lot of people that have been very protective about making Oak Cliff as amazing as it is, and as open and receptive to building community and just doing special things,“ Spillers says. “Oak Cliff as a community is one of the most talented groups of people you will ever meet the most fun people you will ever meet, and the most real people you will ever meet.”
The door opened for them to introduce locations in Forney and Coppell. The goal is to have 10 locations by the end of the decade.
“There’s just so many different ways that Eno’s is a part of the fabric of the community,” Spillers says. “I think one of the things that we look for as we expand, and as we grow, we think of Eno’s as a community cornerstone, that third place that people are going to go. It’s not home, it’s not work, it’s that other place where they’re going to gather. We look for locations in different markets where we can genuinely and authentically and neatly be that for a community.”
Eno’s celebrated its 17th anniversary in July.
“It’s a kaleidoscope of emotion,” Spillers says. “It’s been a journey. Over the past 17 years, we’ve had some really just incredible successes and and we’ve had so much fun in that process. But at the same time, we’ve lived through COVID. We’ve lived through some really challenging business environments and team adjustments and family stuff. It’s a massive celebration. Seventeen years in the Bishop Arts District, we’re a dinosaur.”
Eno’s Pizza Tavern, 407 N Bishop Ave., 214.943.9200, enospizza.com
