Preslee’s Brings Southern Cuisine and Lots of Bourbon to Shady Acres

Shady Acres is gearing up to welcome an airy, laid-back respite to wash down chicken fried steak with cold local beers.

Preslee’s (1430 West 19th Street) comes from Piper Development’s brothers Brandon and Justin Piper, who named the rustic restaurant after Justin’s 1-year-old daughter. The team is targeting an opening at the end of the month.

Patrons are welcomed outside by a gigantic wooden chair built in comical in Texas-sized proportions. The standalone space that formerly housed a Chinese restaurant got a complete overhaul over the past few months, using the look and vibe of an old country store as inspiration.

“There were low-drop ceilings and the kitchen was a disaster — nothing you’d want to see food come out of,” says Brandon Piper, who has experience rehabbing area restaurants for his main GC gig at his family’s commercial real estate firm.

The 85-seat interior’s ceilings were opened up, framed with wooden rafters. Newly installed operable windows swing out to let breeze freely flow through the restaurant.

A massive 150-foot-long outdoor patio for 300 is adorned with whimsical rope swings, hammocks, concrete ping pong tables, and hand-build wooden patio tables. Vintage pieces collected and salvaged by its team over the years — like life-sized statues of the Blues brothers and a giant mural of the Astrodome — live on at Preslee’s.

Preslee’s/Facebook

The Southern-style counter service menu will be filled out by stuffed turkey legs, crawfish mac and cheese, plantain-crusted mahi-mahi, and homemade banana pudding. An interior ice cream parlor inside will serve a dozen flavors by the scoop. Along with expected offerings like chocolate chip cookie dough and red velvet, offbeat combos include cake batter mixed with crunched up Lemonhead candies.

“Kids are going to go crazy for it,” he says.

For adults, its newly added bar will offer a bourbon-driven cocktail list featuring Old Fashioneds, as well as frozen margaritas and froze. There’s six tap lines, with two reserved for wine; the rest of the large local beer list will come in cans and bottles.

Preslee’s will operate seven days a week starting with lunch, staying open later on weekends until midnight. On Sunday there’s just brunch (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.), but Preslee’s will keep pouring and serving until later if there’s a big football game that night.