TV Restaurants

What Happened to Abacus After Best Thing I Ever Ate? (Dallas, TX)

Best Thing I Ever Ate, Season 3 Dallas, Texas

Current status

Closed

As of October 2026, Abacus is listed closed on Yelp, reviewed by our team on September 21, 2026; not yet independently confirmed through direct contact with the business.

What the source shows: Correcting a prior automated mismatch: the address on file, 5480 La Sierra Dr, Dallas, TX, is a medical-office building housing Abacus Environment (an unrelated environmental-consulting firm), Endocrine Associates of Dallas, and an engineering firm -- no restaurant. The actual Abacus restaurant, chef Kent Rathbun's acclaimed New American spot, was located at 4511 McKinney Ave, Dallas, TX 75205, and closed permanently in 2019 per CultureMap Dallas (May 22, 2019, "Acclaimed restaurant Abacus in Knox Henderson Dallas will close"); Yelp's listing for that address is still marked "CLOSED" as of an August 2026 update. How we decide a status →

What happened after Best Thing I Ever Ate?

The episode featured chef Kent Rathbun's modern American cooking at Abacus, a Dallas restaurant known for elevated dishes such as wok-charred lobster with sticky rice. Rathbun opened Abacus in Dallas in 1999, and the restaurant was named the city's most popular by the 2007 Zagat Survey, according to a Wikipedia biography of the chef. Wikipedia's biography of the chef lists Abacus among Rathbun's restaurants but gives no street address and no dated confirmation of its operating status, so it is not a source for the restaurant's current status.

CultureMap Dallas reported on May 22, 2019 that Abacus, at 4511 McKinney Avenue in Knox Henderson, would close, and the restaurant closed permanently that year, per that report. Yelp's listing for the McKinney Avenue address is still marked closed as of an August 2026 update.

The episode Best Thing I Ever Ate, Season 3

Episode 13
Air date not confirmed
Title: Best Thing I Ever Drank · What was featured: Wok-charred lobster and modern American tasting dishes

Also in Season 3 Best Thing I Ever Ate

Season 3: 63 of 93 still open · 3 renamed, moved or under new owners

All 13 Season 3 episodes →

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Sources we checked 1 reference

  1. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Rathbun
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Record btiea-0291 · checked by Cal Marchetti.