Into the Arena

Former club owner Brad Priebe, who once owned Suede Bar & Grill down on Greenville Avenue and had his fingers in the Dragonfly Bar & Restaurant before it went through its many incarnations (Milkbar, Syn Bar) and burned down and is now a nursery or some such, has joined hands with former Dallas Cowboys special teams coach and one-time Dallas Desperados head coach Joe Avezzano and his son Tony to add some sports bar paraphernalia to Frisco. In October Coach Joe's Sports Grille will enter the Frisco lexicon. Elaborates Priebe: "It's Houston's meets Snuffer's." Yet here he's selling Joe short. Just count the ways: 1) Swelling some 10,000 square feet, Coach Joe's will have three 8-foot-high water walls behind the bar and will be buffed, steroids-like, with plasmas and big screens—30 of them; 2) The 325-seat Coach Joe's will serve Black Angus burgers plus Italian cuisine born of Avezzano home recipes; 3) Four nights per week Coach Joe's will shovel live Red Dirt, or that Americana/alt-country music genre typified by Cross Canadian Ragweed. Added bonus: Coach Joe's will have karaoke—a Frisco favorite—backed up by a live Coach Joe's house band. "Karaoke is big up here," Priebe says. The Priebe-Avezzano combine also plans to scale down Joe's and spread it with a counter service venue called GameDay Grille. GameDay will open in Frisco, Valley Ranch and possibly Southlake and Oklahoma City over the next 24 months.