Uptown Dallas: Business Openings and Closings

[LongonBigD]

BoConcept failed before. I remember when it was on Alpha near the Galleria. Not sure what the issue is there. I think the McKinney Ave shoppers don’t yet have a compelling attraction strong enough to bring them south of Armstrong. It just a matter of time though.

I have heard that the property at SW corner of McKinney & Armstrong may be turning over. We know Knox Street Pub is closing. Now word is that Kozy is moving to Lakewood (lucky them). That leaves the Salon and Enterprise Car Rental. Doesn’t sound good for them.

[R1070]

Is Restoration Hardware temporarily taking over the spaces being built out next to the RH Modern temp store or is something else going in there?

[NdoorTX]

yep, RH Baby & Child + Teen

[DPatel304]

The restaurant and bar is still open, but crews will be doing a renovation to move the parking lot, expand the kitchen and add a new private dining area. Managing Partner Buddy Cramer calls it a "beautification."

City of Dallas records confirm that the bar's new certificate of occupancy includes nearly 96 parking spots, double the number from before.

On that former parking lot, crews will expand the kitchen and add more bathrooms. Cramer says they'll also space out the existing outdoor patio seating.

https://www.guidelive.com/food-and-drin ... enovations

We learned a few months ago that they had bought some land (in between the Ice House and the former Company Cafe), and now we have more details on what exactly they are doing. I can't say I'm too surprised, but I'm extremely disappointed here. I think there is so much potential here, and there is an insane amount of walking traffic here, so it's such a shame that they decided to expand the parking lot.

On the plus side, it sounds like they are 'beautifying' the area, so maybe it might not look as bad as I am imagining, but I really feel like they could have used the extra space to add some space for a couple food trucks, maybe a separate bar around that is more family oriented that provides space for kids to play but also has a bar for the adults.

[Redblock]

The Velvet Taco which took over the Urban Taco building has hung a banner that they are opening Monday, August 6.

[cowboyeagle05]

Also, I want to point out the lack of having a parking lot during construction appears to not have affected their success. Every time I pass by during normal happy hour the patio is full to the brim with food, drinks, and dogs. A lot of people do use the trail access to get to the Katy Trail Ice House even if they park at another part of the trail and walk down to it.

The trail is for more than a jog its a transportation system that works for encouraging commerce as well as recreation.

[Benjamin]

They should focus on expanding their square footage, not the parking lot. It's the building/patio size that caps the amount of business they can do, not the number of parking spaces.

Though if they create a private dining area, then maybe their thought is that those patrons are much more likely to drive than their average customer.

[cowboyeagle05]

It sounds like they expect to snag more and more private parties for sure. If you have ever looked at the smaller patio they had backing up to the parking lot they constantly had that marked off for private events. They are also supposedly improving the Trail connection so we will see if trail users will have to jog through a valet turnaround or not. When the city let go of the street property that ends at the trail for this project it had no public renderings posted so I was unsure if it will truly be an improvement.

[uptown74]

Looks like Social House in Uptown on Routh is permanently closed

[Redblock]

PL8 has closed.

[flyswatter]

Social house is surprising. PL8 isn't surprising, although only lasting 6 months is a little bit.

[R1070]

PL8 wasn't the right fit for right there.

[lakewoodhobo]

Did PL8 even make it 6 months? Trying to see if this or Little Woodrow's or Agave Azul takes the crown for shortest lifetime.

[Matt777]

Did PL8 even make it 6 months? Trying to see if this or Little Woodrow's or Agave Azul takes the crown for shortest lifetime.

I think Hot Joy takes the crown. 3 months. For good reason. And that stupid, racist mural still adorns the building.

[Redblock]

^^^ Speaking of Hot Joy, has anyone found out what the zoning change request for this site involved? The case number is Z178-223 (some prankster moved the sign to West Village by Massage Envy).

[DPatel304]

I finally had a chance to check out The Commons at Cedar Springs (mini 'food hall' in Uptown). Honestly, I was very underwhelmed by the place, and I can't see it lasting that long. I was really excited for this, because I had heard great things about OMG taco, and the fact that they were able to get a location here, plus a few other venues sounded promising.

I ended up eating at OMG tacos, which I really enjoyed, but the place itself just had a really weird set up, obnoxious lighting, and there wasn't much going on. To me, it really seemed like it was designed to cater to the drunk/party crowd, so perhaps I'm just not the target audience here. I might give this one another chance and go during the day for a coffee, but, if the last 'food hall' wasn't able to cut it here, I can't see this one doing any better. I felt the original food hall was a bit too small and underwhelming, but this one seems even more limited than the last one.

[princecy]

Did PL8 even make it 6 months? Trying to see if this or Little Woodrow's or Agave Azul takes the crown for shortest lifetime.

I think Hot Joy takes the crown. 3 months. For good reason. And that stupid, racist mural still adorns the building.

Building will be torn down next year I believe.

[Tivo_Kenevil]

I ended up eating at OMG tacos, which I really enjoyed, but the place itself just had a really weird set up, obnoxious lighting, and there wasn't much going on. To me, it really seemed like it was designed to cater to the drunk/party crowd, so perhaps I'm just not the target audience here.

I frequented the Richardson location a lot.

The tacos at omg tacos are ok.

It's more of a late nite bite type of place..they're BYOB and open till 2 am.. i would imagine that's the idea at this location..

[cowboyeagle05]

The former of McKinney Avenue Tavern(Big Al's) is under some sort of major construction. Drove by on the bus this morning and they had already used a CAT frontloader to tear out the front patio and they are dumping interior finish materials in the parking lot.

[cowboyeagle05]

Well, the entire front patio is gone now. I can not tell if they plan to keep the building or tear it down. They def appear to have stripped the inside of anything from its past life. There appears to maybe two people working on site but making quick work of it.

[Redblock]

Circo Dallas in the One Uptown building is now open.


http://dallas.culturemap.com/news/resta ... high-rise/

I expect all of you beautiful people to dress to impress and report back on what it is like.

[tamtagon]

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[flyswatter]

https://dallas.eater.com/2018/9/24/1789 ... npaid-rent

Pazzo is closed. "Clubby" restaurants seem to struggle in Uptown now so it'll be interesting to see how well Circo does. Based on the description of the place and the social club it has, I'm sure the people who pay $2000+/month to live in One Uptown hope it closes quickly.

[Lakewood2Uptown]

Walking around this evening I noticed a few things:

It looks like San Martin will open soon.
A restaurant is going into the old MAT location. They have gutted the place.
The club moving into the old Idle Rich location looks like it is going to be the worst. Probably will require a membership and $200 bottle to get a table. It will fit in nicely with Circo.

[Tivo_Kenevil]

Do ppl still party in Uptown?

[cowboyeagle05]

Also, that Italian place that opened at the Gables down from KungFu next to the Uptown Market closed rather quickly. I forget what it was even called.

[cowboyeagle05]

Walking around this evening I noticed a few things:

It looks like San Martin will open soon.
A restaurant is going into the old MAT location. They have gutted the place.
The club moving into the old Idle Rich location looks like it is going to be the worst. Probably will require a membership and $200 bottle to get a table. It will fit in nicely with Circo.

How could you not love a place that's only open Thursday - Sunday....http://onesette.com/ I miss Idle rich for sure. At least they had food. The last thing we need here is a "lounge". With any luck, it will open with a bang one weekend be busy for TX/OU and be gone shortly after.

[flyswatter]

Not only that, but it's only open 3 hours!

[lakewoodhobo]

https://candysdirt.com/2018/09/25/want- ... l-cost-ya/

Apologies if this was posted elsewhere, but we may be losing the Fat Rabbit/PL8 + Nickel & Rye buildings + the historic home (built in 1900 according to DCAD) with Methodology Pilates soon. The owner is assembling the land for a high-rise.

[DPatel304]

Happy to see Fat Rabbit go, but very disappointed to see that historic house might be going away as well, especially since it is a good sized lot even without the house included. Seems like they could easily re-develop this into a high rise while still preserving the house.

I randomly came across this proposed development that is happening in the West Campus area in Austin:

https://communityimpact.com/austin/cent ... stin-home/

It would be really cool to see a couple of similar developments like those in Uptown. That way, when it's all said and done, we don't just have a cluster of high-rises.

[LongonBigD]

I have heard that the property at SW corner of McKinney & Armstrong may be turning over. We know Knox Street Pub is closing. Now word is that Kozy is moving to Lakewood (lucky them). That leaves the Salon and Enterprise Car Rental. Doesn’t sound good for them.

UPDATE: New temporary sign for Enterprise Car Rental went up two doors down from Pei Wei one block east from current location. Still no word on future plans for the SW corner of McKinney Ave and Armstrong.

[R1070]

Interesting. It would be good to see that lot turn into something mixed use.

[Redblock]

Do ppl still party in Uptown?

Uptown is no longer Party Central but last night One Sette Dallas (ex-idle Rich) was hopping. It had a full parking lot, a SRO patio, and a line at the door.

It may just be the crowd who goes to the new hot place...until the next new hot place opens.

[Tnexster]

https://candysdirt.com/2018/09/25/want-to-build-a-high-rise-on-mckinney-itll-cost-ya/

Apologies if this was posted elsewhere, but we may be losing the Fat Rabbit/PL8 + Nickel & Rye buildings + the historic home (built in 1900 according to DCAD) with Methodology Pilates soon. The owner is assembling the land for a high-rise.

That would be a big conversion, wonder what the plan will be?

[DPatel304]

It may just be the crowd who goes to the new hot place...until the next new hot place opens.

That's exactly what is going on. Like you said, that crowd is very fickle, and, as soon as something newer opens up, this place will be old news. I predict that One Sette will manage to attract a decent crowd until NYE, but, shortly after then it'll lose popularity and will close early 2019.

[CTroyMathis]

While across the street from the Uptown PID lower borders, Stampede 66 is out at Park Seventeen. It's moving.

https://stampede66restaurant.com/

[cowboyeagle05]

Based on my read of Candy's Dirt it's not likely a tower is coming soon if ever. The market for towers here seems to have slowed down and this new combined plot is pricey.

Fat Rabbit/PL8 closed awhile ago so the question is will they sign a new lease for that space or let it sit waiting for a property purchase. It also includes one of my favorite bars Renfields which seems to do fine so we will just have to wait and see.

[mcrdal15]

Fat Rabbit/PL8 closed awhile ago so the question is will they sign a new lease for that space or let it sit waiting for a property purchase.

I'm sick and tired of these properties sitting empty, which does impact the vibrancy of the neighborhood. There's a great article out in the Atlantic about the conundrum of affluent areas becoming ghost towns: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... cy/572911/. There's several reasons for it, but the 3rd one really hit home and I believe will unfortunately become Uptown's future

"But that brings us to the third problem: Many landlords don’t want to offer short-term leases to pop-up stores if they think a richer, longer-term deal is forthcoming from a national brand with money to burn, like a bank branch or retail chain. The upshot is a stubborn market imbalance: The fastest-growing online retailers are looking to experiment with short-term leases, but the landlords are holding out for long-term tenants."

It continues:

"But the 2018 landlord waiting game is denuding New York of its particularity and turning the city into a high-density simulacrum of the American suburb. The West Village landlords hoping to lease their spaces to national chains are turning one of America’s most famous neighborhoods into a labyrinthine strip mall."

^^ This is already occurring in Central Dallas. This sums up Victory Park to a T and Uptown is next. In the same building that CityDoc Urgent Care Uptown is in (green building across from Standard Pour,
2909 McKinney Ave, Dallas, TX 75204), the front side has had a For Lease sign in the 3 years I've lived in Uptown. If you do a Google Street View history, the last time a business was there was in 2014. 4 years! This is also a major problem with Downtown surface lots. Owners just sitting on them, waiting for their big pay day. They're holding up the economic vitality of Downtown. It's time for the city to finally discourage those damn lots.

[Matt777]

Not to mention that you don't see any of them leasing to mom and pop type shops that were synonymous with urban neighborhoods in the past. Where's the cheap Chinese takeout spots in Downtown and Uptown, for example? There are NONE. Unless you count a couple in the tunnels downtown with very limited hours. The retail owners would rather wait for the Apple store that is never coming to lease their space.

[Cbdallas]

If you really want to see this effect and the routing out of a city visit San Francisco. It feels like Blade Runner with the really rich behind closed doors and the rest on sidewalks with empty run down store fronts. I really don't know what the answer is to this as the online shopping and now food delivery is sucking the life off our streets. The first warning bell was all of the malls that closed that moved their stores to outlet malls that are now vacating to strictly online. I miss the energy of the actual storefront and the people it drew.

[The_Overdog]

I think this kind of sucks, but in the grand scheme of things subsidizing 'street vitality' would fall far behind many other things that deserve subsidizing. And if you just want these buildings to choose lower quality commercial renters, well then you have to answer why they should when their residential leasing rates and percentages are great - ie: why they should firesale their retail? If they choose to pursue local retail at the expense of national retail, that's their choice of course. I think what we are seeing is that leasing from a 'position of strength' has its downsides too from a neighborhood quality perspective.

And the huge divergence of capital availability between national and local retail. Ironically, loosening lending standards might even the playing field, but so many were burned in the housing crisis and don't want to repeat that, even though credit wasn't the problem -jobs were.

More residential would help this in most places in that sales for marginal lessors would increase on a sq ft basis. Possibly not NYC but everywhere else.

[mcrdal15]

Not to mention that you don't see any of them leasing to mom and pop type shops that were synonymous with urban neighborhoods in the past. Where's the cheap Chinese takeout spots in Downtown and Uptown, for example? There are NONE. Unless you count a couple in the tunnels downtown with very limited hours. The retail owners would rather wait for the Apple store that is never coming to lease their space.

I agree. You could always drive to an ugly strip mall in Richardson for your authentic and cheap Chinese

And how many Apple stores do we need? Uptown alone has 4 Starbucks and at least 2 others not too far away (Hall & 75 and Oak Lawn Ave.). It seems like for these properties it's either a major chain, some pretentious and overpriced place like Pl8 (that lasts about 3 months at most), or sits empty. Very rarely do we get something truly interesting.

[Matt777]

Not to mention that you don't see any of them leasing to mom and pop type shops that were synonymous with urban neighborhoods in the past. Where's the cheap Chinese takeout spots in Downtown and Uptown, for example? There are NONE. Unless you count a couple in the tunnels downtown with very limited hours. The retail owners would rather wait for the Apple store that is never coming to lease their space.

I agree. You could always drive to an ugly strip mall in Richardson for your authentic and cheap Chinese

And how many Apple stores do we need? Uptown alone has 4 Starbucks and at least 2 others not too far away (Hall & 75 and Oak Lawn Ave.). It seems like for these properties it's either a major chain, some pretentious and overpriced place like Pl8 (that lasts about 3 months at most), or sits empty. Very rarely do we get something truly interesting.

I can, and I do drive to Richardson for amazing authentic Chinese! If Jeng Chi opened a branch in Uptown or Downtown, they would make a killing in both dine-in and delivery. They'd have no direct competition unless you count Howard Wang's (authentic/Americanized hybrid, but also costlier). Once people try it there would be an endless line of Favor, Grubhub, DoorDash, and UberEats drivers spreading their deliciousness across the urban core. Quality of life increase +++.

[cowboyeagle05]

I would say there are pockets in areas where some of this experimentation seems to happen. I put the strip in the gaybourhood as an example. We had one chain Subway and it lasted for a few years but largely the neighborhood stays filled and the bars are not the majority of that space even though they drive a significant amount of customer base to the area. Even spaces where gay owned retailers left restaurants have moved in with new concepts in many cases less than a year. The gaybourhood is no Bishop Arts in terms of shining beacon to some when it comes to unique eats and shopping created by well known local chefs but it generally seems stable and appeals to a mix of both those who live within walking distance and those that come to the area for a favorite local haunt. It has businesses for a mix of price ranges as well. Mind you the gaybourhood has the advantage of being a town square for a community still trying to hold on to its own culture while integrating into the wider DFW culture.

The gaybourhood appears to have property owners that do make an effort to cultivate what businesses they lease to. When someone wanted to put in that Subway a few years back supposedly they had to promise to make the Subway more unique so they put in a couch and TV's. Not really a big improvement but supposedly driven by the agreement with the property owner. Eventually, the Subway closed I am sure for a number of reasons including its national corporate failures but we didn't get a Jimmy Johns in its place we got another nail salon. A neighborhood service retailer something that doesn't tend to be attractive to many of these new towers. They all want unique but high-end valet driven concepts these days.

Back to the threads overall topic though many of the property owners are not cultivating these spaces beyond what their calculations tell them is market appropriate. The former Big Al Mckinney Avenue Tavern space is already seeing a new tenant yet the space across the street has been empty for years and sees homeless sleep on its patio regularly.

[Kelley USA]

Café Express in Uptown has officially closed... Sad to see this one go. So many great memories of eating at Café Express when I lived in Uptown. That leaves just 1 CE in Dallas and 6 others in Houston.

http://dallas.culturemap.com/news/resta ... ey-avenue/

[Matt777]

Café Express in Uptown has officially closed... Sad to see this one go. So many great memories of eating at Café Express when I lived in Uptown. That leaves just 1 CE in Dallas and 6 others in Houston.

http://dallas.culturemap.com/news/resta ... ey-avenue/

Wow, that was quick. All that build up for the new location, and it fizzled. I guess the Uptown scene has changed a lot since they closed 2 years ago to rebuild.

I'm sure that space won't stay empty long.

[eburress]

That's too bad. It was a great place to go eat light, and I hope some other, similar concept pops up to replace it.

[Warrior2015]

Café Express in Uptown has officially closed... Sad to see this one go. So many great memories of eating at Café Express when I lived in Uptown. That leaves just 1 CE in Dallas and 6 others in Houston.

http://dallas.culturemap.com/news/resta ... ey-avenue/

Dallas needs more ethnic food in these areas. Its already enough cute places like this around. Sad to see them go so soon though

[mdg109]

I just went a couple weeks ago, and it's sad bc the interior design and patio were really well done. It made you want to linger there.

[Cbdallas]

The restaurant business and the way young people eat out has changed pretty dramatically since the hey day of Cafe Express. It is easy to forget that back in the day there were very few options to eat in that area and they filled that void but not the case today so many options and so much more to come.