Back in the bad old ’90s a homebuilding company was slapped with a sexual harassment suit after one of its managers reached for a pastry and smiled at a female employee. “Nothing I like more in the morning than sticky buns,” he said. It’s doubtful chef/owner Tom Fleming had any awareness of this legal wrangle when he opened Crossroads Diner. That’s what makes the huge mural painted on the side of the restaurant so delicious. It depicts a woman in a slinky red dress hiked up past the knee holding a platter of pastries and blurting, “Get your hot sticky buns up front!” And these buns are big and bad with drools of buttery cinnamon freezing a sprinkling of chopped pecans in the sweet glaze. Did we mention these adhesive keisters are damn good?

Everything at Crossroads flows in this same vein, from the buttermilk pancakes that seem to melt their way into your disposition to the killer house-smoked pork hash to specials like red wine-braised beef stew to the schnitzel over grits crowned with a poached egg on top—rib plaster for the Sunday School set (beware: the lines get long on worship day). Crossroads is a cavernous crisp space, with kitchen utensils posing as wall sconces, blazingly institutional white tile as a backdrop, and a colorful Dallas skyline mural brushed on the wall by artist Randy Stark. In the annals of the gussied-up greasy spoon—or big-hipped dungaree cozy food accessorized with a Versace belt—it’s a rare diner that doesn’t get its buns kicked by Crossroads.