Didi's Downtown

Didi's Downtown is in a house at 7210 West Main Street that, by the restaurant's own account, was built in 1914 and is the third-oldest in Frisco. It calls itself a funky little shack filled with locals, real food and live music, and it has traded since 2018. Chef and owner Scott Hoffner washed dishes for the first time at nine in Plano, trained at Johnson & Wales University, and cooked as chef de cuisine at the Ojai Valley Inn in Southern California and as an executive chef in Dallas and Coppell before opening the restaurant, which he named after his mother, the original Didi.

The drink menu puts it plainly — ranch waters, house cocktails, a wine list worth lingering over, and mocktails for the designated drivers — and the non-alcoholic drinks get their own section, headed No Proof, Full Flavor, at $8 each. There are seven: a Cherry Vanilla Coke with house-made cherry syrup; a Nojito of muddled mint and lime with simple syrup and club soda; a 'Safe' Sex on the Beach of peach purée with pineapple, orange and cranberry juice; a Blackberry 'Pony' Water of blackberry purée and lime topped with soda; a Watermelon Mint Limeade; a Peach Rosemary Lemonade; and a Mango Sunset Spritz of mango purée, orange and pineapple juice and the cherry syrup, topped with soda. They are fruit-and-soda drinks rather than builds on non-alcoholic spirits, made from purées, fresh lemonade and limeade, muddled herbs and that house-made syrup.

Didi's is closed on Monday and Tuesday. It opens at 11am from Wednesday to Sunday and closes at 9pm on Wednesday and Thursday, 10pm on Friday and Saturday and 7:30pm on Sunday, with brunch from 11am to 3pm at the weekend. A community social hour from Wednesday to Friday, 3pm to 6pm, prices drinks at $7, and there is a patio as well as the dining room.