We ate there the day that they opened. They were still working out some kinks. Did not yet have booze, but that was supposed to be happening soon. I had a Pastrami Sandwich which was pretty good, although I prefer mine hot! My buddy sent his sandwich back to be heated up and he said that it was good. Prices seemed right, so we will be giving it another shot.Originally Posted by UrbanHope
In Deep Ellum, How to Translate "Enthusiasm" for a Community Garden Into a Dug Deal
By Robert Wilonsky in News You Can Actually Use, Actually | Mon., Dec. 7 2009 @ 10:48AM
. . .The foundations hopes that ultimately, the garden won't be a single, disconnected patch of land, but something spread out throughout Deep Ellum's alleys that compliments the Deep Ellum Mural Project. . .
Source: http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfa..._translate.php
Jsoto you got a good photo of me talking to one of the artist Melody Hay. The lady in the scarf is Essie Graham.
Scott Dorn
Hitting the streets with the cam
http://www.flickr.com/photos/70886669@N00/
http://homepage.mac.com/sdorn/dallas_shots
http://www.myspace.com/177586541
http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2009...erformance-sp/
Dallas Comedy House to open restaurant-performance space in Deep Ellum in January
by Teresa Gubbins
DALLAS — Dallas Comedy House, an itinerant comedy collective that's been based at the Ozona Bar & Grill, is opening a permanent space on Commerce Street in Deep Ellum, where they'll teach classes, host performances, and operate a casual restaurant.
"We're going to be performing and teaching, although legally we're a restaurant," says Clay Barton, who co-owns the organization with partner Amanda Austin. They're eying the weekend of January 22-23 to open, depending on how quickly their TABC paperwork gets processed.
Barton and Austin launched the group about a year ago, after having met while doing improv together at places like Ad Libs, which also has a permanent space in Deep Ellum that it opened about two years ago. With the two located so close to each other, it gives the neighborhood an identity as a comedy destination.
...
"We want to make the area a comedy stop," says Barton.
La Grange opens tomorrow...
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfa..._years_eve.php
I like the idea. The talk of it being the only bowling alley in the loop may be true right now but isn't there one planned for the development at Park and Central across from Northpark?
http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2010...lum-district-/
But, as Spivey puts it, there's been nothing in close-up Dallas. He's modeling it after the ultra-hip Brooklyn Bowl, in Brooklyn's Williamsburg district.
"It'd be a similar concept to Brooklyn Bowl, a bowling bar," he says. "Right now, with the way the economy is, it's a good opportunity for people to go out and have a good inexpensive-entertainment night, and there’s nothing [deep] inside the 635 loop for bowling or family entertainment."
Great idea! Looks they are modeling it after this one: http://www.brooklynbowl.com/
I've never really considered bowling to be inexpensive. I find it odd that someone would get a shirt embroidered for an event they wear rented shoes to. Anyway, I'm up for a game or two.
There was something similar to this a short walk from our hotel in Seattle when we went there in 2008. It only had 5-6 lanes, but had a cool bar and music scene. I think that setup would be a big hit in deep ellum.
This is way cool!! Hopefully he means it when he says it will be inexpensive. I've been to Splittsville in Arlington Highlands, and for the experience and food, it was waaaay overpriced. I felt so ripped off, I've vowed to never go back.
Dear Urban Market,
Please open another satellite location in the Ambrose, right off the new line. We need food in Expo Park and Deep Ellum.
Are you sure you'd want Urban Market to operate it? The one downtown has gone downhill pretty fast.
I really don't care. I still shop there...because it's there. A small store, like the one South Side on Lamar has, would be tits. And I KNOW people would use it...
Yes. A market in DE. And fast.
Why do you say that? Seems to be doing fine to me.
Bowling sounds like a good idea for that area but i can't see how he will get more then a couple of lanes in that space... Its a really odd shaped building...
According to a post on the Deep Ellum Bowl forum:
Seeking Deep Ellum Artists!
« Thread Started on Jan 13, 2010, 2:13pm »
hey... remember the good old days with the painted tunnel that lead into downtown? All the crazy paintings on the sides of the buildings?
Deep Ellum Bowl is bringing it back! We are looking for some hard core deep ellum artists to contact us. We want to bring all of that old charm back into our designs and need your help.
Please contact kingpin (at) deepellumbowl.com and let us know some history about you and let us know how to get in touch with you.
Thanks!
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. - B. Obama 1/20/09
Will Deep Ellum score a strike with a bowling alley?
1:00 PM Sun, Jan 24, 2010 | Permalink
Travis Hudson/Producer
http://eastdallasblog.dallasnews.com...llum-bowl.html
Deep Ellum's revival will be taking a flat-shoe'd step in the right direction if all goes according to plan with the latest business addition to the area. The previously mentioned Deep Ellum Bowl is Craig Spivey's project three years in the making that is finally becoming a reality with an anticipated opening this summer.
This isn't going to be the smokey, fluorescent-lit bowling alleys of yesteryear. These lanes will have more of an urban-feel, emulating much of the scene around the rest of Deep Ellum. In addition to 10 bowling lanes, it will include a bar, restaurant, live music and more, according to multiple message board posts from Spivey at deepellumbowl.com
The biggest hurdle could be with the location. Deep Ellum Bowl will be calling 2600 Main St. home. It's the same 2600 Main that previously housed Prizm, CopperTank Brewing Co. and most recently Uropa. At just under 200-feet long and 95-feet wide, the biggest challenge could be making the various elements fit.
But Barry Annino, Deep Ellum Foundation president, said he welcomes development of that site. The long and narrow building at the corner of Good Latimer Expressway and Main serves as a doorstep to Deep Ellum, Annino said. And he wasn't shy about commenting on the exterior of the building, which he described as ugly, to say the least.
And, if Deep Ellum Bowl has daytime hours, Annino likes the possibility that it will attract more daytime-focused businesses to the area like bookstores and coffee shops, not to mention of how it could help his bowling handicap.
Just moved to DE. Can't wait for this to open.. and i don't even bowl.
Just did a drive by through Deep Ellum... and noticed that someone is cleaning up the old Sambuka space... looks like it is going to open as something...
^ where abouts exactly is the old Sambuca space
32.784051,-96.785786
Lula B's moving to Deep Ellum! (Love this place!)
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfa...ss_is_deep.php
I noticed the new building last week and it looks very nice. This will be good for Deep Ellum!
Crime down, business up as Dallas' Deep Ellum area takes on challenges in rebirth
12:33 AM CDT on Sunday, April 18, 2010
By DAVID FLICK / The Dallas Morning News
dflick@dallasnews.com
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...m.3e1fe5e.html
The signs of returning life in Deep Ellum are unmistakable.
A dozen new galleries have opened in the past few years. Restaurants again have lines during lunchtime. Crime is dramatically down. DART's long-awaited Green Line now stops at two stations in the neighborhood. Bars with live entertainment are moving back in, and a bowling alley aimed at young professionals will debut this fall.But no one pretends that Deep Ellum has returned to its heyday of the 1990s, when it was Dallas' hottest and hippest venue.
There are still closed buildings and empty lots. Pedestrian traffic on weekend nights can be slow.
"I don't think there's anything like returning to old glory days. What's past is past," said Frank Campagna, owner of the Kettle arts gallery on Elm Street. "But as far as moving forward to a newly vital neighborhood, things are going well right now."
In some ways, the glory days of the 1990s are exactly what neighborhood leaders want to avoid.
In the early 1990s, Deep Ellum was the center of Dallas' portion of the dot-com boom. So many Internet businesses moved in that there was talk of renaming East Commerce Street as e-Commerce Street, recalls Barry Annino, president of the nonprofit Deep Ellum Foundation.
The city was so eager to draw entertainment businesses to the center city that officials relaxed parking restrictions for dance clubs.
"They weren't careful who they invited in, and as a result, we got some bad clubs," he said.
The dot-com balloon burst a decade ago. Young professionals decamped for West Village and Henderson Avenue. A series of assaults on Deep Ellum visitors a few years ago was widely reported in the media.
By 2005, many of the galleries, clothing stores and restaurants had moved elsewhere.
In some ways, the completeness of the devastation has given neighborhood advocates a chance for a fresh start.
"When you cut down all the trees, the grass can grow again," Annino said. "And that's what we're looking at now."
The city created a Public Improvement District for Deep Ellum in 2006. It sets new rules for incoming businesses that are intended to favor small venues instead of the big clubs.
"We're trying to create a more intimate neighborhood, one that's open 24 hours," he said.
Many of the new business owners are seeking an older, more stable demographic niche.
Dianne Tucker, owner of Tuckers' Blues off Commerce Street, offers patrons the traditional jazz and blues that gave Deep Ellum a national reputation. She'll sometimes mount the stage during breaks in performances and offer history lessons about the neighborhood or the great blues musicians.
"Our audience is more mature. It's not so much the younger crowd you got with some of the clubs that were here before," Tucker said.
Like most business owners, she is hoping that the opening of DART's Green Line last September will eventually make a difference.
The light-rail line has two stations in the area – Deep Ellum Station at Good-Latimer Expressway and Gaston Avenue; and Baylor University Medical Center Station at Junius and Hall streets.
While Deep Ellum advocates believe the rail line will eventually encourage new development and more visitors, the difference so far has been slight.
The Deep Ellum Station appears to be the most lightly used of the Green Line stops. Statistics from late last year – after the State Fair had ended – showed that an average of 176 people boarded DART at the Deep Ellum Station each day, compared with Fair Park, which had 1,467.
"During the NBA All-Star weekend, we had a lot of requests from people there to keep the lines open past midnight, and we did it, but we had very few riders," DART spokesman Morgan Lyons said.
He said it will take a year or two to get an accurate picture of individual station use.
The most dramatic turnaround has been the drop in crime.
"It's not one of our hot beats like it used to be," said Deputy Chief Vincent Golbeck of the Dallas Police Department's central patrol division.
Crime dropped significantly in the middle of the decade, after the city put more crime-fighting resources in the area and as people began staying away at night. It ticked up slightly as more people returned but was down again last year in most categories, he said.
When Annino is asked how he believes Deep Ellum is doing, his responses reflect a neighborhood at a crossroads.
"I'm very optimistic," he said at one moment.
"I'm feeling ground down," he said a few minutes later.
Despite the good signs, the area still faces challenges, he said.
For one thing, the recession has chilled any major private investment for the foreseeable future. At the moment, the area's hope lies with attracting small entrepreneurs.
He would like to see the city repave the streets and rebuild the curbs, if only to give the area a fresher feel. And he said business owners often complain that the city is slow to issue permits.
Dallas City Council member Pauline Medrano, who represents much of the neighborhood, acknowledges that the permitting process can be slow, but she asks that business owners understand that there are often several departments involved.
And she said she believes that the city has been a good partner, noting that council action had stopped unscrupulous parking lot owners from booting the cars of paying customers.
Overall, Medrano believes the future for Deep Ellum is bright. She notes the opening of a 350-unit residential complex there and plans for a University of North Texas Law School within easy walking distance downtown.
"It's coming. Not today or tomorrow, but there's light at the end of the tunnel," she said.
Medrano need to be extremely concerned that Deep Ellum is not turned into another version of Uptown.
A friend of mine lives on Canton near the Deep Ellum border. She just mentioned last week, when she leaves her apartment window open at night, she has noticed the stream of cars coming into D. Ellum at night has really increased.
I spoke with the owner of Viper Lounge, which opened last Thursday, and he said that he's going to be opening up a draft house and a sports bar next door to VL in the fall. Where is the bowling alley going to be located?
At Main/Commerce and Good-Latimer
http://www.deepellumbowl.com/
the old coppertank?
Rock and Roll Revolution
Dallas Gets Its Groove Back
By CEIL MILLER BOUCHET
Published: May 16, 2010
New York Times
THERE’S a sun-baked, low-rise neighborhood in Dallas where urban pioneers have staked out a bling-free zone, set against the glittering backdrop of downtown skyscrapers. Deep Ellum — that’s Texas-ese for “Deep Elm,” the neighborhood’s original name — has historically been a scruffy working-class area.
“In the ’20s and ’30s, day laborers would hop the Houston and Texas Central Railway here for the cotton fields of Plano,” explained Barry Annino, a local developer. “In the evening, the area became a jazz and blues hotbed.” But over the years the trains disappeared and the music scene got out of hand. By the late ’90s, national punk and hip-hop acts had turned Deep Ellum into rowdy club central — until new zoning laws shut things down.
Now, fresh life is seeping back, thanks to a new set of tracks: the city’s light rail Green Line, which had its debut last fall, has reinvigorated local residents, who have reclaimed warehouses as living spaces and old venues as new hangouts for live-music fans.
Rest of the article...
Dallas gets its groove back!
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/05/16...surfacing.html
There's a sun-baked, low-rise neighborhood in Dallas where urban pioneers have staked out a bling-free zone, set against the glittering backdrop of downtown skyscrapers. Deep Ellum — that’s Texas-ese for “Deep Elm,” the neighborhood’s original name — has historically been a scruffy working-class area..............
Now, fresh life is seeping back, thanks to a new set of tracks: the city’s light rail Green Line, which had its debut last fall, has reinvigorated local residents, who have reclaimed warehouses as living spaces and old venues as new hangouts for live-music fans
Just what every hip neighborhood needs, an endorsement from the New York Times, for validation.
As some of you may (or may not know) we have been working on a social network / resource specifically for Deep Ellum over the last year. You can view the site now at www.deepellumcommunity.com
We have had over 200 users register since it's soft launch and are looking for more people to help promote, contribute, post blogs, etc... The site is a labor of love, and we are always looking for ways to improve the usability, function and features.
Dude...I feel you 100% on that. Shopping late night at 7-11 is not economical or healthy. You live down here too right? Why don't we start up a petition or something? I have brought this up at meetings, countless conversations to the land owners... no one really seems to care.
Welcome to the forum!
id like just a cvs or a walgreens to come into the neighborhood. i hate the night staff at the 7-11.
I would also say I have seen a HUGE increase in people in the neighborhood just since i moved to deep ellum in march. it seems that there are quite a few places being remodeled. now if they could just drop the rates on several of the other vacant buildings so i could just open my phat sandwich joint...
A long time ago, Monica Greene tried a convenience/grocery/restaurant/deli next to Aca y Alla, and now that she's back in town, maybe she will take up resident's interests in Deep Ellum again. Well, maybe after the probable Bishop Arts concept is successfully rooted.
What's up -- it's Justin T... and welcome to the board!
I'm game for anything that might stir up some interest.
Also, the Deep Ellum Jimmy John's has been locked out for non-payment of rent. Big surprise.
This leaves "It's A Grind"... that's it. Prime retail w/direct rail access -- almost completely vacant.
^ How is that "prime retail"? No storefront parking. Basically invisible from the street -- and a VERY low traffic street at that. In a neighborhood where half the retail storefronts are empty.
Let's put it this way. I live and work three blocks away. I just got back from my gym, one block away. I drive by that center 3-4 times per week. And until your post, I didn't know there was a Jimmy John's there. :-)
Back when that building was being built, I tongue-in-cheek proposed a pool to guess when that retail would be fully leased. Without looking up the thread, my guess was probably 10 years off or something. I received much grief over my pessimism. Now it's looking like I was an optimist.
Are you a kettle ball junky? This explains everything.
Tighten the female dog!
Okay, whatever. Some retail with rail access, which has to be worth something to someone... Right?
Don't answer that.
That Jimmy Johns had the worst hours. I live in the Ambrose and I never once ate there.
Andrea Grimes back at the Observer showing some love - http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfa...hose_kinda.php
I honestly think if we expect to change anything, we cannot rely on the old power structure / leadership down here. It's like the banker bail out. The people behind the implosion are the main ones in charge of "fixing" the crisis. There is a lot of hubris, and politics that goes on.
Plus there is way too much red tape involved in opening a business down here. Basically if you don't fit the aesthetic of what a few insiders think is cool, you are up shit creek with a toothpick.
I'm not saying that I have it all figured out by any means, but I have been able to generate more of a buzz in my spare time, by myself than a committee of people who have a budget specifically to do this kind of stuff.
If you heard of some of the policies, back alley deals, and ineptitude going on, well... this picture pretty much sums it up...
There is a meeting with a lot of the main business owners next Friday you should go to. I'll hit you up on Facebook with the 411 on that.
Last edited by AXZM; 21 May 2010 at 03:54 PM.
word
Sounds like the same thing that goes on down the street along the Main Street Corridor. If you don't play with the main group that plays with Downtown Dallas Inc then your business does not exist and never will on any of their efforts to revitalize and make progress for the area. You get shut out if you don't open the business they want or they just pretend you don't exist until you come running with a large check.
I'm sure there are some differences in Deep Ellum but I'm guessing a similar game is played as its played in many neighborhoods/districts in the Dallas area. Its a shame sometimes but only the strong survive.
^ how can DD Inc determine a business' success? If your food is good with decent service and atmosphere, you can make it. Your business exists if you get out and promote it and have what I just mentioned.
Founder of dallasprogress.blogspot.com/
How ignorant do you think the people on this board are?
-Ryan
- - - - - - -
When you have given nothing, ask for nothing.
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