Chicago deep-dish pizza joint Gino's East opens its first D-FW restaurant

It took 49 years for Chicago deep-dish pizza joint Gino's East to make it to North Texas. Gino's in Arlington opens Monday, May 4.

And here's some even more delicious news: One other Gino's East franchise will pop up soon in D-FW, ATX Brands founder Doug Guller told

The Dallas Morning News

exclusively. This fall, Guller plans to open a Gino's in Dallas near Interstate 35E and Loop 12, in place of a current Bikinis Sports Bar & Grill.

Many Bikinis (which are owned by ATX Brands) will soon become Gino's East pizza shops, in fact.

Guller has plans for Gino's to make a "big expansion into D-FW," with four to six Gino's planned for North Texas in three years.

The legendary Gino's launched in Chicago in 1966 and became nationally known for its thick-as-cake pizzas, which take 45 minutes to an hour to bake.

It's also famous for the graffiti inside its restaurants. As in, "People were so bored, [waiting for their pizzas] they started writing on the walls," Guller explains. The new Arlington store will keep up the tradition at the new North Texas locations. Better bring a Sharpie.

The Arlington shop will add a few new "Texas" dishes to the menu, such as a brisket pie, but it'll also lean on some old favorites such as the Chicago Fire: a deep-dish 'za with hot and spicy patty-style sausage. "That's the one that's always talked about," Guller says, and it's the pizza you should try first if you're new to Gino's, he says.

But who are we kidding? Plenty of North Texans are familiar with Gino's in Chicago.

If the opening in Arlington is anything like the one in the Woodlands, expect long lines -- and long waits for those deep-dish pizzas.

"We were blown away by how much fanfare there was," Guller says of the December 2014 opening in the Woodlands, which was Texas' first Gino's. "It was a good problem to have, and we had to recover quickly."

"But wow, were we shocked about how many Chicagoans were in Texas."

Sounds similar to the opening of Al's Italian Beef, another Chicago-area favorite that popped up in Addison recently and

sold out of beef during its opening week

. Another Chicago-inspired hot dog shop, Luscher's Red Hots,

recently opened in Deep Ellum

.

The Gino's invasion

The Arlington Gino's will be the fourth in Texas, behind locations in the Woodlands and Willowbrook -- both near Houston -- and a shop in San Antonio.

With the transition from Bikinis to Gino's East, Guller's team closed the Bikinis restaurants in Mesquite and Richardson recently. Some of the Austin-area Bikinis will remain.

ATX Brands is actively looking for new locations for Gino's in downtown Dallas, downtown Fort Worth, Frisco and Plano.

1350 E. Copeland Road, Arlington (on the frontage road of Interstate 30, near N. Collins St.). ginoseast.com. Abbreviated hours on opening days: 2-10 p.m. May 4 and 5. Regular hours begin May 6: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. every Friday and Saturday; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday.