Kevin Lee has traded his fight gloves for oven mitts.
The former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) interim Lightweight title challenger celebrated the grand opening of his restaurant, “Braised,” yesterday (Sun., Nov. 1, 2026) inside PREP Dallas at 1499 Regal Row, Suite 205, in Dallas, Texas.
Lee was joined by his younger brother, former Bellator fighter-turned extremely popular food critic Keith Lee, for Sunday’s grand opening. The brothers personally served complimentary meals to the first 30 customers, who were able to choose from any of the restaurant’s six featured dishes.
Braised specializes in slow-cooked meats and elevated comfort food. Its menu includes signature braised oxtail, barbecue beef short ribs, chicken pot pie, short-rib lasagna, lamb chops and slow-cooked chicken wings, along with seasonal sides and peach cobbler (check out the entire menu here).
Kevin expects his oxtail — which is slowly cooked for hours before being finished in its own gravy — to become the restaurant’s signature dish.
“I think it’s going to be the real star of the show,” Lee told The Dallas Morning News.
This is not Lee’s first attempt at entering the restaurant business. “The Motown Phenom” initially launched Braised as a pop-up stand at Yellow Green Farmers Market in Hollywood, Florida, in 2024. The concept eventually expanded into a food truck and catering operation before Lee relocated his family and business to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Braised received a significant boost after Keith secretly reviewed his brother’s Florida pop-up. Kevin had initially asked Keith not to promote the business because he wanted to establish it without relying on his brother’s massive social-media following.
Keith sent someone else inside to purchase the food before reviewing Braised’s short ribs, duck and oxtail from his vehicle. The video generated millions of views, and the pop-up reportedly sold out within three hours the following day. Keith also gave Kevin $10,000 to invest back into the business.
Braised’s short ribs and chicken pot pies later sold out at Keith’s inaugural Familee Day festival.
Kevin said Dallas presented the right opportunity to restart the restaurant while building a community around the business.
“I’m really excited for this next chapter in the business and getting it restarted,” Lee said.
I DID boil dem ribs!
Lee challenged Tony Ferguson for the interim UFC Lightweight championship in 2017 and compiled an 11-8 record inside the Octagon. He has not competed since suffering a first-round technical knockout loss to Gadzhi Rabadanov in his Professional Fighters League (PFL) debut in June 2025 (watch highlights), and then retired from MMA.
Is it as good as Hendrickses steak house was?
I’ll try it next time I’m there for work!
Somebody should get tagged here!
3, 2, 1…
HOO ? I already did , unless …
He joins a long line of great former UFC fighters turned restauranteurs. Johny Hendricks, Tito Ortiz. Can’t wait to see the reviews.
WAR MOTOWN
Tito?? Pal you better think again
The restaurant failed because of a high speed boating crash and from what Ive heard from people in the know at the time he made major profit with the cantina just cut ties with the help and took the high road
These moves never seem like a good idea. How many former athletes ever get success opening a restaurant?
Seems like the only good reason to open a restaurant is to clean your drug money.
I’m sure it’s no Big Riggs
Yeah…I’m actually a Boston Irish and can’t cook for shit, but I can wash that yay green like nobody’s business!
I want to say terrible idea but at least its kind of original concept and it seems more thought out than your usual fighter owned restaurant
Braising is my most beloved cooking technique though and its what makes traditional poor people so great
Oxtail as a signature dish is all bad right now .horrifically expensive for what used to be scraps you could get from the butcher