Twin Peaks, Texas and coal, housing slowdown, Kroger: Monday's Business Briefing

Your lunctime look at D-FW business [Your lunctime look at D-FW business] September 17,  2018 🔎 Prefer the online view? It's [here](. Follow us on Twitter [@DMNBiz](. Office workers walk by Twin Peaks restaurant in Mockingbird Station in Dallas on Sept. 12, 2018. (Brian Elledge/The Dallas Morning News) The Big Story In #MeToo era, can breastaurant chain Twin Peaks survive wave of allegations? Crystal McBride didn’t mind wearing a crop top and shorts to work. She wasn’t bothered by flirty banter with customers — she’s practiced at deflecting comments with a playful, “Oh, I haven’t heard that one before,” or an exaggerated eye roll — and she enjoyed the hustle for tips. But McBride, who until recently worked at Twin Peaks locations around North Texas, did mind what she and other former employees of the Dallas-based "breastaurant" chain described in interviews and documents as a toxic work environment, where women employees were routinely pitted against one another, ranked based on arbitrary “tone scores” — evaluations of their bodies — and subjected to verbal harassment from customers and bosses alike. The Dallas Morning News spoke with five former employees, three “Twin Peaks Girls,” one female manager and one male manager. [Their stories paint a picture of a workplace rife with favoritism and abuse.Â](The environment, the workers said, wore them down, eroding their sense of self day by day. Even if they made money, the emotional toll became too high a cost. As the #MeToo movement forces employers across the world to reckon with harassment women often face on the job, can such businesses adapt? The Latest Downtown tower lands another law firm tenant [London-based DLA Piper]( has leased two floors in the new high-rise that overlooks Klyde Warren Park. How much has Texas dropped its coal reliance? In Texas, [electricity producers used coal more than natural gas in 2010](but otherwise, natural gas has led the way in the last couple of decades. Kroger's plan to fill your pantry and your closet [Dip is the name of Kroger's new apparel brand]( that's been added this week to its 300 Fred Meyer and Kroger Marketplace stores. Match Group's bumpy road to the top of online dating [The Dallas-based company is on a hot streak]( — boosting its forecast, raking in billions of dollars in revenue and expanding its portfolio of products. Mary and Rich Templeton pledge $5 million to SMU "Research is essential to SMU's ability to make an impact through technology," [said Rich Templeton](, chairman, president and CEO of Texas Instruments. Advertisement Elsewhere in Texas - San Antonio: [Area students seek a patent]( to keep flowers blooming. (San Antonio Express-News) - Mont Belvieu: [Texas petrochemical plants]( turn ethane into building blocks of plastic. (Houston Chronicle) - San Antonio: [The Hays Street Bridge fight]( is in the state’s high court. (San Antonio Express-News) - Statewide: [Groups ask Paxton to intervene]( in Univision, Dish Network fight. (Austin American-Statesman) - Houston: [The Lake Houston area]( is showing significant retail growth a year after Harvey. (Houston Chronicle) Dallas-area home sales fell 4 percent in August but they were 1 percent ahead in the Fort Worth area. (Jae S. Lee, Staff Photographer) SPOTLIGHT Housing slowdown is worse than you thought with declines in Allen, Plano Sales of preowned single-family homes dropped 1 percent annually in August in all of North Texas, according to the latest numbers from the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. Those numbers include data on more than two dozen counties stretching from the Red River to Waco. When you drill down in the numbers to just the immediate D-FW area, August's dip in home purchase activity was much larger. In the Dallas area, sales of preowned homes by real estate agents fell by about 4 percent in August from a year earlier. Fort Worth-area sales managed to eke out a 1 percent year-over-year rise in home purchases made through real estate agents. [But some Dallas-area residential districts saw marked declines in home buying last month.]( - [Steve Brown]( Follow DFW stocks: [See how top North Texas stocks performed](, as well as the oil and gas markets and major stock exchanges. DFW Top 100 Places to Work 2017: The Dallas Morning News and Workplace Dynamics partner each year to feature the [Top 100 workplaces](, based on ratings by the people who work at them. Advertisement 👋  That's all for today! For up-to-the-minute business news and analysis, check out [DallasNews.com/Business](. 💖 Share the love: If you like this newsletter, please forward this email to a friend and [check out our other newsletters here](. 📧 Do you have feedback on this newsletter? Send your thoughts, questions, praise and corrections to our Business Editor Paul O'Donnell at [podonnell@dallasnews.com](mailto:podonnell@dallasnews.com?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback). 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