Marcus Paslay’s Clay Pigeon Flys High Again
For the past decade, that's been one of the top requests Marcus Paslay has fielded from diners who frequent his flagship restaurant, which opened nearly 11 years ago, the first restaurant from a then-unknown chef who would, over the years, become one of the most recognizable names in North Texas' dining scene.
This long-awaited change is just one part of a recent renovation that has given the popular restaurant a fresh new look. In addition to rolling out booth and banquette seating options, the restaurant's bar area has been given a nice makeover, and new light fixtures have brightened the dining room, giving it an open, airy feel.
"In a way, it feels like a new restaurant to me," Paslay says as he shows me around CP's dining area, beaming with the enthusiasm of a proud papa. "When we hit the 10-year mark last year, we decided we needed to bring a new energy to the restaurant. Ten years — it was time to freshen things up a bit."
The Arlington native's first restaurant opened in December 2023 in the space once occupied by Lou Lambert's steakhouse, Lambert's Steak, Seafood & Whiskey, and, before that, Pedro's Trailer Park, an early venture by Paul Willis, founder of Fuzzy's Tacos.
By adopting a farm-to-table, scratch-made philosophy in which even the ice cream for desserts is prepared in-house, Paslay made the space his own. He found his footing with local foodies right off the bat, then the rest of the city followed, drawn to his small menu of steaks, seafood, and vegetables, and the restaurant's intimate yet lively atmosphere.
With the exception of his menu, which changes with the season, there haven't been any major revisions at Clay Pigeon, and diners haven't seemed to have minded. What, in other words, is there to fix?
But 10 years, Paslay says, is a long time for a restaurant to go without a nip and tuck here or there. So last year, when CP turned 10, he decided to start revamping the room, little by little. Paslay loved working with Foxcroft Studio, the Dallas-based design firm that brought to life his latest restaurant, the seafood-driven Walloon's, so he turned to the agency again for the Pigeon redux, which included the addition of nearly a dozen leather booths and banquettes.
"Booth seating has been something people have been asking for since we opened," he says. "The other big wow factor is the bar. There's new paneling on the front of the bar, new shelving around it, and the pendant lights above it."
A graduate of the renowned Culinary Institute of America (CIA), Paslay honed his craft in kitchens across the country, from Alaska to Napa Valley. He eventually returned to his North Texas roots, cooking at Nick Badovinus' acclaimed Neighborhood Services in Dallas before going solo to open Clay Pigeon.
Since then, Paslay has become one of the most well-known chefs and restaurateurs in North Texas. Under the banner of his From Scratch Hospitality group, he and his team — executive chef Scott Lewis and director of operations Kellen Hamrah — have opened three additional restaurants, Piattello Italian Kitchen, Provender Hall, and Walloon's (Reata expat Russell Kirkpatrick recently joined From Scratch, also as director of operations).
The team also recently purchased Mercado Juarez, a beloved Tex-Mex institute with locations in Arlington and North Fort Worth.
"I have a lot of great childhood memories of eating there," he says. "So that's a place that has always meant a lot to me."
Mercado Juarez loyalists probably haven't noticed many changes, and they won't, Paslay says.
"All we've done there really is consolidate the menu a bit," he says. "It's classic Tex-Mex — the tortillas are made there, the salsa's really good. There's nothing to change, nothing to fix. It was really good before we came along. What we are looking at doing is opening additional locations, but that's down the road."
Paslay did institute one major change: He jarred the restaurant's irresistible salsa.
"You can buy it there at the restaurants," he says. "I don't know about grocery stores yet, but it's a thought."
Paslay has also spent the past few years working with his wife, Emily, on the Paslay Foundation, which they founded around the turn of the decade to help provide diagnosis and treatment for children with learning challenges. At a young age, Marcus was diagnosed with dyslexia.
Had it not been for his dyslexia diagnosis and the specialized support he received at Hill School Fort Worth, chef Paslay's life might have unfolded quite differently. The birth of the couple's foundation grew out of his concern that many children with dyslexia don't have access to the resources that he did.
To date, the foundation has raised approximately $400,000, Emily says.
As Marcus moves into his second decade as a restaurateur, he's become the face of success to the next generation of chefs and restaurant owners who aren't far behind, Paslay says.
"It's just getting after it every day," he says. "I think there's a lot of stuff in this business that you can't know until you do it, but hard work will compensate for that lack of knowledge. But eventually you'll learn what you need to learn. Tenacity is probably the one key thing anyone needs to make it in this business."
