The Deep Ellum Bar, which used to be Hide, will rise as a new bar. Called RoPo and Logan, it is by Abby Perkins, visual artist and wife of Nick Backlund (Hide, Royal 38, Toller Patio) and will open on September 15th at the same location at Elm St. 2816.
This is an unusual name, but it reflects the Perkins experience. Named for two historic Chicago neighborhoods: Rogers Park and Logan Square, it is her love letter to the Midwestern dining and drinking culture that she enjoyed while in Chicago.
RoPo will be a Midwestern style dive that will offer food and drinks that are native to the local culture. Frozen pizza? No, but the signatures sound tempting like this:
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Green River Slush, with Green River Soda, Vodka, and Malort Floater; Malort is a cult liquor in Chicago that has a bitter taste of liquorice
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The Hot Dish, a hearty casserole with beef, onions, bechamel and bitter green
The bar is run by a face familiar to Deep Ellum residents: Jessica Brodsky, who has worked in local institutions like Three Links and The Green Room.
Perkins says their goal is to improve Dallas’ food culture by consciously creating spaces and experiences.
“I want Dallas to recognize the fact that we are becoming a cultural melting pot,” she says. “As bar owners, we see our responsibility to develop carefully curated concepts that improve the drinking and eating culture in our city.”
Perkins was born and raised in Kessler Park, but moved to Chicago to study lithography and sculpture at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, and lived there for several years after graduating.
Visiting bars in the Midwest became a part of her “starving artist life”.
“In 2010 I used to go to a bar called Whirlway on Fullerton in Logan Square,” she recalls. “They served each cocktail in a glass coffee cup with a coffee straw. The owner and only bartender let me use her wifi to stream episodes of Roseanne on the trash couch in the back corner of the bar. “
“There’s something special about a dive bar,” she says.
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