This story comes from the Texas Monthly archives. We left it as it was originally published without updating it for a clear historical record. Some of the phrasing in this archive story on topics such as race and gender may not meet today’s standards.
Öon Friday night in Dallas, five young guys were looking for a good time. Three of them had just got home from work. The other two came from outside. Unable to decide where to go, they made their way to Dallas Alley, which had something for everyone.
They cavorted in the disco Boiler Room, which was full of good-looking Dallas girls (“Dudes and Babes” is the contemporary equivalent of “cats and chicks”). They dug up the mismatched furniture, three pinball machines, and the low ceiling at Froggy Bottoms, a rhythm and blues club next door. They admired the gray and black high-tech decor of Take 5, where Extreme Heat stirred a dance crowd by exhorting, “Everybody Wang Chung tonight!” They followed a long queue into a brightly lit bar called Alley Cats, where boisterous preppies huddled around two pianists and sang “I Want to Hold Your Hand” with all the spirit and enthusiasm that the Corps puts into the “Aggie War Hymn” . Happy as everyone seemed, the boys didn’t want to stand in line for half an hour to share the experience. Three of them went back to Froggy Bottoms for a barbecue, one went to a nearby food court for souvlaki and a cheesy dog (he could never make up his mind), and the other dropped onto the long brick stairs in the alley to get his beer to slurp and soak up the wonder of it all.
That night the five young guys had seen the future of nightlife. Although they passed through several clubs, each with their own music, ambience and clientele, they never left the premises of Dallas Alley, a state-of-the-art fantasy world light years behind the corner tavern: a restaurant and seven themed bars located in two renovated brick factory buildings in the West End Historical District gather. If the five guys hadn’t returned to the Boiler Room to admire the babes ‘miniskirts and moussed dos, they would have heard the Storyville Stompers play at Plaza Bar Dixieland, got a burger and shake at Bubbles’ Beach Diner, Skee Rolled ball in the Tilt Carnival Arcade or a quiet tête-à-tête in the semi-private backstage cocktail piano bar, all for a nominal fee of USD 5 (USD 3 early in the week). When they hit the alley again this month, the boys can nibble tapas while listening to Patsy Cline records in the new Santa Fe-style restaurant.
Seventeen thousand guests in search of a good time pop under the signature neon arches of Dallas Alley each week, and five thousand on a decent weekend evening. In their wake, by the first anniversary of Dallas Alley on October 18, they will have left $ 10 million. In July, the stylized whiskey mall paid more liquor taxes than any other establishment in the state – $ 87,417.90 to be precise – with no specialty for a drink. Within a few months, it has become the anchor attraction of the West End Marketplace shopping center. In fact, Dallas Alley is the number one reason pedestrians strolled downtown for the first time in thirty years after dark. The phenomenon occurred amid an economic slump and at a particularly difficult time for nightclubs, given the reintroduction of the minimum alcohol age to 21 last year, society’s increasingly tough attitudes towards alcohol abuse, fears of AIDS, and the emergence of couch potato syndrome .
The choice is why Dallas Alley beats all odds, says Spencer Taylor, the steely-eyed forty-year-old who made it all up. A twenty-year veteran of the Fort Worth and Arlington pub wars, Taylor was the brains behind Billy Bob’s Texas, which is currently considered the largest honky tonk in the world. Though Billy Bob’s height gave the impetus to revitalize the Stockyards Historical District in Cowtown, Taylor knew the volume would not be enough for Dallas Alley. Instead, he relied on variety through music. “We think the days of the single-minded bar where you drink and look at the opposite sex are over,” says Taylor. “We’re trying to give people a lot more choice – choice through entertainment, choice through food, choice through activity. You have to give people a lot of things to do. ”On weekends and Mondays, when a well-known touring band plays a free concert on the outdoor terrace, the rush is so great that at least three rooms are constantly filled. These concerts have helped attract teenagers who can’t get into the clubs but who can mingle in the alleyways.
The clean, well-lit area has earned Dallas Alley its reputation as an adult Disneyland or, as the Dallas Observer put it, “Six Flags for Drunks”. The comparisons are sneaky compliments at best, but Dallas Alley owes a lot to Walt Disney’s emphasis on organization. The club’s 227 young, freshly scrubbed employees look like misplaced mouse keteers and could be mistaken for customers if the walkie-talkies weren’t glued to their ears (as if they could really hear all about the noise). As optimistic and efficient as Dallas Alley is, Taylor thinks it’s not Disney enough: “Every time we think we’re really good, we take our people to the Epcot Center. You quickly realize that you don’t have everything together, including me. “
Much like Disneyland, his project has spawned a number of imitators. Some former employees cloned the multi-theme concept at West Side Stories in Fort Worth. A group of investors, including club entrepreneur Richard Chase, announced plans for a similar project in Dallas that would include multiple clubs under one roof called Near Ellum. Taylor is considering projects in Fort Worth, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and Charlotte, North Carolina. He assumes he’ll have an advantage everywhere because Dallas Alley actually works. “Most festival marketplaces make the mistake of strictly targeting convention-goers and tourists,” says Taylor. “Our intention is to reach at least 75 percent of local transport. The secret lies in the mix and never losing sight of the local market. “
He was so successful in captivating local club-goers that several nightspots in the city, particularly in northern Dallas, saw a dramatic decline in business. Recently the thirty year old Strictly Tabu, Redux (formerly Tango), Mistral and Razz-Ma-Tazz all closed. Taylor insists he doesn’t want success at the expense of other nightclubs. “We came to play and we came to win, but I really like it when the competition does well,” he said. “For a while I felt that Dallas’s economic base was not deep enough and our competition was starting to hurt. But in the last month I can feel the general mood, attitude and psychological feeling on the street start to change. “
Strangely enough, some of the competition agrees. Stoneleigh P., a drinking establishment in the Oak Lawn area, may offer the philosophical opposite of the programmed fun atmosphere of Dallas Alley, but co-owner RW Winburn is happy to see it: “More power for you. We felt lonely on this side of town and they helped bring people to the area. I’m not sure we’re targeting their clientele as we’re not a fancy light disco and don’t drink fruit drinks. ”Redux’s Ellen Grant plans to reopen in Deep Ellum, but still likes what Taylor has brought to the West End. “Dallas Alley is the remote control for entertainment,” she says. “That’s what the public wants. It even brainwashed me. I think it’s wonderful. But I would hate it if the kind of venues that showcase local and regional talent disappeared. “
With all that music going, don’t expect a compilation of Dallas Alley bands following Island Record’s newest album Sounds of Deep Ellum. Grant points out, “They have the top forty attitude, but that’s Dallas. The majority of the club goers in Dallas are the disco group, and they don’t care so much about the quality of the entertainment at a venue as they care about the quality of the buffets and the guys and girls who are there. “
The five young guys aren’t going to make Dallas Alley their full-time hangout. At some point, the babes will move to a newer and trendier place. The boys will either look for a place with more history, more character and fewer frills, or they will give up drinking altogether. Even in Dallas, when they drink, some people need a sense of place, a sense of belonging. Dallas Alley cannot reproduce that. Given the homogeneous clientele, there probably won’t be a Latin conjunto club or a Zydeco dance hall either. While Dallas Alley is nowhere near as Euro-chic as Starck Club on the other highway, as hip and artsy as Deep Ellum, or as friendly as Stoneleigh P. and Poor David’s Pub, it has the crowd by selling a simple one Access attracted, choice and cleanliness. And if you’re new to town, don’t get around much, or have little time to foster a long-term relationship with a drinking place – as is the case with the five young guys and a large section of the population – that’s a fact a strong bait.
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