One might easily take the local hospitality community for granted, knowing how readily bartenders and spirits brand reps have stepped up in recent years for benefit events aiding abused kids, disaster relief or Trigger’s Toys, a nonprofit serving hospitalized kids and their families.
Now, in the midst of widespread shelter-in-place orders that have shut down area bars and restaurants because of coronavirus concerns, it’s their own community that needs the help – and a team of local BBQ pitmasters hopes to come to the rescue with a meaty effort dubbed The Great Texas Bar-BQ Pick-Up.
Led by Leo Morales of Barrel & Bones Craft Bar and Smokehouse in The Colony, the team — which includes Dallas’ Ferris Wheelers and Smoke Sessions of Royse City — plans to cook 250 briskets to anchor hundreds of meals whose sale will benefit struggling hospitality workers. The effort is being organized by Trigger’s Toys, which hopes to distribute proceeds to about a hundred area bartenders.
“They’ve always been there for Trigger’s, so Trigger’s is going to be there for them,” said Bryan Townsend, who co-founded the Dallas-based charity nearly a decade ago with wife Stacey.
It was the hospitality industry, Townsend said, that helped build Trigger’s Toys’ success, volunteering to staff the Ultimate Cocktail Experience, the agency’s annual event that has raised $1 million since 2012.
So when Morales approached him and Brian McCullough, both of whom often help put together bartender-driven benefit efforts, they were all in.
“Leo’s been part of the bar community,” McCullough says. “He knows this impacts all of our friends.”
Morales already had experience providing BBQ meals to local breweries that don’t have their own kitchens, so the infrastructure was in place.
For $50, you can buy a family meal — including two pounds of brisket, plus two sides — for your household and/or front-line workers such as nurses and police officers. Or you can simply make a donation to the effort.
“We’re really just trying to crush this thing from all angles,” Townsend says.
The meals will be available for pickup on April 27 at as many as 20 brewery locations throughout the Dallas area, and Townsend hopes to repeat the event if it’s successful. You can place your order here.
The effort comes a week after Cattleack Barbecue in Farmers Branch announced that it would give away 300 pounds of brisket and burnt ends to those in need of a meal.
Mustache seesaws. Vodka ice cream. A magical wall through which seemingly disembodied hands offer cocktails for the taking. It might sound like something out of an Alice in Wonderland fantasyland, but that’s what you’ll find on the evening of Sunday, Oct. 13, at Deep Ellum’s Harlowe MXM and its adjoining sister bar, Trick Pony.
The event is the 8thannual Ultimate Cocktail Experience, which in its previous seven years has raised nearly $1 million total for Dallas-based Trigger’s Toys, a non-profit organization aiding hospitalized kids and their families.
2018’s Ultimate Cocktail Experience took place at The Bomb Factory. Image from video footage produced for the event.
“It’s one of those days when everybody comes together,” said Naomi Ayala, president of the U.S Bartenders Guild’s Dallas chapter, at a recent group workshop. “It’s for the kids.”
Originally known as the Fantasy Bar Draft and then Cocktails for a Cause, the Ultimate Cocktail Event has snowballed since its initial runs at The Standard Pour in Uptown and Henry’s Majestic in Knox-Henderson, held more recently at massive venues like the Bomb Factory and Klyde Warren Park. This year’s move to Harlowe/Trick Pony takes the party back to its roots while maintaining its spirit and spectacle.
“We’re toning it back down,” says Brian McCullough, among the event’s
original organizers. “Everyone will feel the whole thing a little more.”
The Ultimate Cocktail Experience, now in its 8th year, has raised nearly $1 million for Trigger’s Toys.
The Ultimate Cocktail Event runs from 6 to 11 p.m. and capitalizes on the Harlowe/Trick Pony complex’s two-story design – a perfect setting for the gala’s traditional five-way battle of pop-up bars staffed by more than a hundred bar industry pros from DFW and beyond.
Every year, five teams of bartenders conceive an imaginary bar and spend time developing the drinks, concept and clever marketing campaigns in pursuit of the coveted people’s choice prize. This year’s event is an all-star reunion, bringing together each of the last five year’s winners for a bid at the ultimate crown.
“We’re even bringing back Ampersand and Ampersand,” says Stephen Halpin, Dallas-based manager of trade education for Patron Tequila, referring to the cheeky name of 2014’s champ.
But as Ayala said, it’s all about the kids. It was Bryan Townsend, vice president of global sales for spirits producer The 86 Co., who launched Trigger’s Toys 11 years ago after witnessing the positive effect that his dog, Trigger, had on an antisocial child at a local care facility.
This year’s move to Harlowe MXM/Trick Pony takes the annual benefit back to its bar roots. Image from video footage produced for the event.
Now, in addition to providing financial support for kids and their families facing long-term hospital care, Trigger’s Toys every year buys holiday-season gifts for them and their families and funds therapeutic care for kids with autism, cerebral palsy and other conditions through an organization called Bryan’s House.
“It has just evolved and evolved,” Townsend says.
Joining “& and &,” helmed by the Statler Hotel’s Kyle Hilla, will be 2018 champ Elevate, captained by Megan McClinton and Jason Pollard of The Usual in Fort Worth; 2017 champ Cuba, led by Nicholas Grammer of The Mitchell; 2016 winner American Carnival, headed by Andrew Stofko of Te Deseo; and 2015 champ Zoom Zoom, led by Zach Smigiel of Billy Can Can.
NOTE: A previous version of this post stated that Ravinder Singh of Sloane’s Corner would be leading team Cuba; Nicholas Grammer has since stepped in to take his place.
The Ultimate Cocktail Experience, coming Saturday to the Bomb Factory in Deep Ellum. (Photo by Don Mamone)
On Saturday, the Bomb Factory in Deep Ellum will transform into a virtual city under a roof. Think bodegas, food trucks, a 13-piece band, a shoeshine stand.
In that sense, the always zany Ultimate Cocktail Experience will be no different – and yet very different in its quest to raise money to benefit for needy kids and their families. Each year, dozens of bartenders from Texas and beyond form teams and try to out-do each other as one-night-only pop-ups, churning out cocktails for charity while creating an identity fitting the theme.
“We really create an experience,” says event founder Bryan Townsend, who first created the event to benefit Trigger’s Toys, the charity he started 10 years ago. “I want it to be the kind of thing where people look at their friends and say, ‘What the hell is going on?’”
What began as a modest holiday-season party at an Uptown bar has eclipsed $200,000 in proceeds each of the last two years. Now in its 10thyear, the event has raised $1.2 million in all, moving from the grassy expanse of Klyde Warren Park into the massive Deep Ellum venue.
“It’s turned into this thing,” Townsend says. “I’ve been really proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish.”
A scene from 2016’s Ultimate Cocktail Experience at Klyde Warren Park. (Photo by Don Mamone)
Ten years ago, Townsend was feeling trapped in the corporate job he had then and began to focus on other things – like his dog, Trigger. He and Trigger were at a Grapevine hospital one day when a nurse told him about a little girl in therapy who’d been unable to socialize with others.
Townsend said: Maybe she’d like to give Trigger a treat?
The girl did, and then Townsend wondered if she might want to follow Trigger through one of the play tunnels in the children’s ward. When that happened, the nurse went and got the girl’s mom, because it was so unlike the girl to be so social.
Inspired by the experience, Townsend created Trigger’s Toys, a nonprofit providing toys, therapy aids and financial assistance to hospitalized kids and their families. As the proceeds grew, Townsend spread the benefits around, with funds now also providing therapy services at Bryan’s House, a Dallas agency serving kids with cerebral palsy, autism, Down syndrome and more.
That’s the mission at the heart of Saturday’s revelry, which runs from 7-11 p.m. at the Bomb Factory, or starting at 6 p.m. for VIP ticket holders. Attendees might encounter breakdancers, drum lines, fortune tellers, even a dog park.
“We want to it be like you’re walking through a city,” says Townsend, vice president and sales director for spirits producer The 86 Co. “What would you see?
Four different pop-ups will vie for top honors:
Elevate, a glam hotel-style bar headed by Megan McClinton and Jason Pollard (The Usual, Fort Worth);
The Lab, a molecular mixology bar led by Fernanda Rossano (High & Tight, Deep Ellum) and Austin Millspaugh (Standard Pour, Uptown);
Corner Bar, a neighborhood-bar concept led by Ravinder Singh (Macellaio, Bishop Arts) and Jones Long (Knife, Mockingbird Station); and
Neon, headed by Zach Potts (Gung Ho, Lower Greenville) and Kelsey Ramage (Trash Collective, Toronto).
The Ultimate Cocktail Experience, coming soon to a Klyde Warren Park near you. (Photo by Don Mamone)
Oh, Cocktails for a Cause. My, how you’ve grown.
Four years ago, the annual, bar-industry-driven fundraiser for Triggers’s Toys was a modest Christmas-season party at The Standard Pour, with 50 bartenders in Santa hats raining cocktails upon their mirthful elf minions. These days… well, look at it: Repositioned in the expansive savanna of Klyde Warren Park, this benefit behemoth, now dubbed the Ultimate Cocktail Experience, last year raised more than $200,000 and aims to exceed that this time around. Naturally.
The 2017 version of the Ultimate Cocktail Experience is set to go down on Saturday, Sept. 30, from 6:30 to 10 p.m. There will be food trucks and a charity casino area. Tickets, which range from $65 to $125 for VIP status, are available here. Or you can get your tickets for $80 at the door.
This big boy pop-up is the brainchild of Bryan Townsend, vice president and sales director for spirits producer The 86 Co., who a decade ago was a corporate wonk who didn’t like his job very much. In 2008, he left his job and began to focus on other things – including his dog, Trigger.
One day he was a Grapevine hospital with his newly trained dog when he met a nurse distressed about a young girl who’d been in therapy for a year, unable to socialize with others. Townsend suggested that maybe the girl would like to give Trigger a treat.
The girl did, and Townsend wondered if she might follow the dog through one of the hospital’s children’s ward play tunnels. Then that happened too. The nurse retrieved the girl’s mother. “It was the first time she’d ever crawled,” Townsend remembered.
Inspired by the experience, Townsend launched Trigger’s Toys, a nonprofit that provides toys, therapy aids and financial assistance to hospitalized kids and their families. That’s the organization at the heart of the revelry that now includes bartenders, brand reps and spirits distributors from Texas and beyond who come to lend their shaking, stirring hands.
A scene from 2016’s Ultimate Cocktail Experience at Klyde Warren Park. (Photo by Don Mamone)
Recast as a global throwdown, the Ultimate Cocktail Experience puts forward six unique bar “concepts,” each representing a different part of the world with drinks to match. This year’s showcased locales are Mexico City, London, New Orleans, Hong Kong, Havana and Casablanca, and each station’s drink lineup will include a classic drink and a non-alcoholic selection.
In the mix this year are bartenders Ash Hauserman of New York’s Havana-themed Blacktail, named Best New American Bar at this summer’s Tales of the Cocktail festival, and Iain Griffiths of London’s Dandelyan, which won the honor of the world’s best cocktail bar.
This year’s teams, classic drinks and team captains are as follows:
Casablanca (Mule): captain Andrew Stofko (Hot Joy, Uptown)
At Sissy’s Southern Kitchen, former bar manager Michael Reith rotated his barrel for a week with sweet sherry before setting his Negroni variation to age.
Negroni Week is underway, and as summer creeps ever closer it’s time to make this legendary ruby-red cocktail your wingman for the next few months. Bittersweet and refreshing, it’s one of my personal favorites, and while any decent bar with a bottle of Campari can generally cobble one together, this week is extra special: It’s all for a good cause.
As drinks go, this is Kirk, Spock and McCoy (or hey, if you like, Harry, Ron and Hermione). The complementary trio of equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and lush, bitter Campari dates back to early 20th-century Italy and has inspired a host of variations; you can enjoy the original and its spawn through Sunday at bars across Dallas-Fort Worth and feel extra good about the fact that your hard-earned dollars are going to charity.
At High and Tight, Austin Gurley’s Negroni variation: Bols genever, Cocchi di Torino, Campari, orange, lime, vanilla.
Now in its fifth year, Negroni Week, presented by Imbibe magazine and Campari, has a hashtag and a flashy web site with a super-cool feature: You can specify your global location, set your acceptable travel range (yes! Drive 150 miles for a Negroni if you wish!) and be given a list of participating bars. There are 95 such venues within a 15-mile radius of Dallas, for instance, so there’s really no excuse not to drink and donate.
Between 2013 and 2016, the effort has grown from 100 participating venues to about 6,000 worldwide, raising nearly $900,000 in the process for charities such as Mercy Corps, Water for People, United Cerebral Palsy and the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic. In Texas, the recipient is Trigger’s Toys, which serves long-term hospitalized kids and their families.
Among the participating venues – you can find a full list here – in Dallas are the Time Out Tavern, Americano, Lounge Here, The Mirador, Sprezza, Oddfellows and The Cedars Social. In Fort Worth, you’ve got Rodeo Goat, Proper and Cork and Pig Tavern. Among others. Even Ruth’s Chris Steak House is getting into the action.
This year’s benefit cocktail event aims to be the largest ever.
It’s the fete that launched a thousand sips.
Now, it’s back for another run: The 5th annual Trigger’s Toys cocktail bash, billed as “The Ultimate Cocktail Experience,” is projected to be the biggest ever – with ailing kids as the beneficiary.
The yearly pop-up, scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 5, has moved to Klyde Warren Park, showing how far the annual benefit event has come after stints at The Standard Pour in Uptown and Henry’s Majestic in Knox-Henderson.
Five teams of bartenders, distributors and brand ambassadors from around Texas will face off for charity, and under this year’s theme, “Cocktails Around The World,” each squad’s pop-up bar will represent a particular continent – North America, South America, Africa, Asia or Europe.
With this year’s larger venue, Trigger’s Toys founder Bryan Townsend hopes to raise as much as $300,000, more than three times the $130,000 raised at last year’s event. By 2020, he aims to offer a million Christmas-season care packages to needy area children.
“We’re offering a unique way for people to experience the talents of our service industry while giving back to their community,” said Townsend, who named the agency for his dog, Trigger, after seeing the animal’s positive effect on a child in need of therapy.
The annual event helps chronically sick kids and their families through financial assistance and supplemental programming.
This year’s event will run from 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tickets, available here, are $65 or $125 for the VIP experience — including 6 p.m. entry.
Team captains and their logos (provided courtesy of Trigger’s Toys) are as follows:
At last year’s Trigger’s Toys benefit, bartenders sling tiki drinks at one of the event’s five pop-up bars. (Mary Christine Szefzyk)
‘Tis the season, yo. Of giving.
Next Sunday, Dec. 13, you’ve got the chance to give and get at the same time. It’s a pre-Christmas miracle.
The 5th annual Trigger’s Toys Fantasy Draft Main Event takes place Dec. 13, with five all-star teams of bartenders and industry professionals staffing five tongue-in-cheek pop-up bars under one roof. Tito Beveridge himself, of Tito’s Vodka, will be there. The entire team of New York-based The 86 Co, will be there. YOU SHOULD BE THERE.
Twenty-five bucks in advance gets you in the door at Henry’s Majestic in Knox-Henderson, plus two drink tickets. (You can also buy tickets at the door for $30.) Then, wherever you want to cut loose and drop your dough is your choice: Will it be Chubbies, the dive bar, or yacht club bar Billion $ Baby? Karaoke bar Liquid Courage, or disco bar Studio Zoom Zoom? Or do you just want a place where you can call your own drink? Then it’s TOGA for you.
The best thing is, it’s all for a good cause. What cause might that be? Gather ’round and listen, boys and girls.
**
Bryan Townsend was at a hospital in Grapevine with his newly trained dog when he met a nurse distressed over a young girl who’d been in therapy for a year, unable to socialize with others. “She’s not getting any better,” the nurse said.
Townsend himself had been stuck for a while, in a corporate job where he wasn’t very happy. In 2008, he left and began focusing on other things. His dog, Trigger, was one of them.
He told the nurse: Maybe she’d like to give Trigger a treat?
The girl did.
“Then I wondered if she’d follow Trigger through a tunnel,” Townsend said. “And she did. The nurse went and got the girl’s mom; it was the first time she’d ever crawled.”
“I truly believe we’re all in the world to do something better.” – Bryan Townsend, The 86 Co.
Inspired by the experience, Townsend – now a vice president and sales director for spirits outfit The 86 Co. – launched Trigger’s Toys, a nonprofit that provides toys, therapy aids and financial assistance for hospitalized kids and their families.
“It instantly changed this girl’s life just because I was throwing treats for my dog,” Townsend says.
**
Last year’s Trigger’s Toys event, including sponsorships, raised about $100,000 for the cause. This year’s total is already at $87,000. “That’s the most we’ve had going in,” said Ariana Hajibashi, who’s handling publicity for the event.
He’s making a drink, he’s shaking it twice. LARK on the Park’s Matt Orth doing good for goodness’ sake at the 2013 Trigger’s Toys benefit event at Standard Pour.
Among the projects past funds have benefited include therapeutic equipment, Christmas toys and construction of a courtyard at Our Children’s House, a facility for children with special healthcare needs at Baylor Scott & White in Carrollton.
Sunday’s event runs from 8 pm until midnight-ish, with stacks upon stacks of participating bartenders coming from all over Texas. There’ll even be a couple from Oklahoma City.
This year’s bartending team captains are Ida Claire’s Bonnie Wilson, Parliament’s Stephen Halpin, Leonard Oliver of Austin’s VOX Table, Juli Naida of HG Sply Co. and Armando Guillen of The Standard Pour.
Each bar team is going all out, as usual: Tito Beveridge will be slinging with the Chubbies team, while Studio Zoom Zoom is gathering short rah-rah videos from classic bars around the world, including New York’s Employees Only and Pegu Club and The Violet Hour in Chicago – each of which will play disco music for an hour at their respective establishments in support.
“I truly believe we’re all in this world to do something better,” Townsend says.
An unforgettable cocktail launched an unforgettable year: Martensen’s Apple Boilermaker.
It was the best of times, it was the thirst of times, and 2014’s constantly unfolding craft-cocktail kaleidoscope unfurled a spirited array of events for DFW’s imbiberati. Here’s a look back at the year’s top stories:
Campbell and Martensen: Spittin’ spirited rhymes at Abacus for all too brief a time.
JANUARY: Eddie “Lucky” Campbell and Michael Martensen together behind the bar at Abacus
From darkness, light: For a brief but glorious time, the chaos set in motion by Eddie “Lucky” Campbell’s displacement from the late Chesterfield and Michael Martensen’s abrupt exit, along with his bar team, from Bar Smyth and The Cedars Social actually set the stage for two of the city’s most talented and influential bar men to pair up behind the bar at Abacus. The two have a longstanding rivalry – “I’m Seabiscuit and he’s War Admiral,” Campbell once told me. “I’m hard working, and he’s a fucking genetic miracle” – that continued to unfold at Abacus to customers’ benefit, especially late, once the kitchen had closed. One evening we rolled in and the two went back and forth like b-boys, throwing down cocktail creations to put each other’s to shame until Martensen slipped off to a corner to focus on a bit of handiwork. “What’s he doing over there?” Campbell wondered with his sly smile. Martensen emerged with what you see at top: A frothy apple boilermaker made with Deep Ellum Blonde, Cointreau, apple brandy, whole egg and a hollowed-out half-eggshell cupping a whiskey shot. Boss.
Libertine’s influential former head barman doing his thing.
MAY: Mate Hartai says goodbye to The Libertine Bar
For years, Hartai — chief barman at Remedy, opening tonight –was synonymous with the Libertine, which he helped transform from solid neighborhood bar to a den of craft-cocktail prowess and innovation. But after five years at the Libertine, Hartai decided it was finally time to move on to other things – namely The Cold Standard, the craft ice business he’s been shaping for some time – and most recently, Remedy, the new Lower Greenville project from HG Sply owner Elias Pope.
The Dallas crew, clockwise from upper right: Hartai, Brian McCullough and Charlie Moore; Bonnie Wilson, Trina Nishimura and Julian Pagan; Josh MacEachern and Josh Hendrix.
JULY: Texas Tiki Throwdown at Tales of the Cocktail, New Orleans
The DFW presence at the spirit industry’s biggest annual gathering has gotten larger and larger, with dozens of bartenders and spirit reps on hand for 2014’s event. Among the festival’s kickoff happenings was the Texas Tiki Throwdown, where DFW drink-slingers went mano-a-mano with others from Houston, Austin and San Antonio. It’s fair to say everyone left the conference room with Lone Stars in their eyes.
Um, this.
JULY: Driftwood introduces an oyster shooter flight
They say the world is your oyster, but sometimes oysters are your world: This little bit of brilliance from Oak Cliff’s disappointingly defunct seafood establishment briefly brightened up my existence. Four oysters on the half-shell, each shell filled upon consumption with one of four spirits or liqueurs: Manzanilla sherry, mezcal, single malt whiskey and Pernod. Let bivalves be bivalves!
Out of the wilderness, a mysterious elixir.
AUGUST: Hendricks Gin’s Kanaracuni unveiling
Dallas was one of a handful of cities this summer in which Hendricks Gin chosed to unveil its rare Kanaracuni gin, a single-batch production made from a plant culled from the Venezuelan rainforest. Hendricks knows how to put on an event, and the fancifully exotic tasting, conducted at the Dallas Zoo, did not disappoint: Bordering on elaborate fantasy, it featured tales of adventure and large insects and finally samples of the amazing kumquat-flavored gin, which in intentionally ephemeral fashion shall never be seen again.
Josh Maceachern, among Michael Martensen’s reunited bartending crew at Proof + Pantry.
AUGUST: Parliament and Proof + Pantry open
As noted above, Lucky Campbell and Michael Martensen’s longstanding rivalry can occasionally reach ridiculous proportions, so it was only logical that their two long-awaited projects would open on the same night — Parliament in Uptown, and Proof + Pantry in the Arts District. (“How ridiculous is that?” Campbell told me a couple of nights before the big event.) Both have met expectations, garnering local and national acclaim.
Everything is illuminated: The new gem in Dallas’ cocktail scene.
OCTOBER: Midnight Rambler opens
Behind their Cuffs and Buttons consulting enterprise, cocktail masters Chad Solomon and Christy Pope have long been influences in DFW’s drinking scene, but it wasn’t until this fall that Midnight Rambler, the bar the two have long dreamed of opening, launched at the Joule Hotel. The swanky subterranean palace and its lineup of well-conceived libations take the city to another level, marking another step in its craft-cocktail evolution.
Venerable barman Charlie Papaceno: No longer tilting at the Windmill.
NOVEMBER: Charlie Papaceno leaves the Windmill Lounge
After nine years at the landmark lounge he co-founded with Louise Owens, Papaceno left the venerable dive spot to pursue plans to open a new bar in Dallas’ Cedars neighborhood. One of the scene’s elder statesmen, Papaceno’s bespectacled mug was a steady presence behind the bar at Windmill, which became an early haven for Dallas’ budding craft-bartender scene and went on to garner national attention – including a nod as one of Esquire’s best American bars.
Slinging tiki drinks at one of five pop-up bars at Henry’s epic Trigger’s Toys benefit. (Mary Christine Szefzyk)
DECEMBER: Trigger’s Toys annual benefit event featuring five pop-up bars
I was crushed to miss this epic event, which made use of the long-unused warren of space at recently opened Henry’s Majestic in the Knox-Henderson area. Five pop-up bars featuring teams of bartenders from DFW and beyond went all out to raise money for a Dallas charity serving hospitalized kids. From sports bar and tiki bar to country saloon and nightclub, it was a raucous party that garnered $100,000 for the cause.
ONGOING: Collectif 1806’s bartender book club events
The bartender education and support arm of Remy Cointreau USA, helmed locally by Emily Perkins, has helped remind that the whole craft-cocktail thing is less revolution than revival. At its periodic exclusive book club gatherings, bartenders page through some of Cointreau’s extensive collection of vintage cocktail tomes, perusing recipes and gleaning old knowledge and then passing the reaped benefits along to consumers. Everybody wins.
Henry’s Majestic, transformed: There’s more than meets the eye.
Oh, Alex Fletcher. You sneaky little dude.
There are so many reasons why you should drag yourself to tonight’s benefit bash for Trigger’s Toys at Henry’s Majestic in Knox-Henderson – the five pop-up bars, for instance, and the fact that the whole thing benefits hospitalized kids. But here’s one more: Mr. Fletcher is about to play the little ace that he’s been holding up his sleeve.
Some were surprised when the craft-cocktail wunderkind announced he was leaving venerable Victor Tango’s, and the bar program he’d helped lift to new heights, for Henry’s, the latest venture in the curiously unfertile space at McKinney and Monticello.
True, he’d known owners Jim and Cindy Hughes of Bread Winners Cafe since his days at the cafe’s adjoining Quarter Bar in Uptown. But still… “It’s more of a leap forward for me,” he told me just after the announcement. “It’s going to open some doors.”
Apparently those doors were more than figurative, because now it all makes sense: At Henry’s, just like a Transformer, there’s more than meets the eye. Turns out there’s an unused nook or cranny or two that have been ripe for the renovating, and the space once home to Cretia’s and Acme F&B has been – surprise! – a rabbit warren of bar potential.
Do not play poker with this man: Head barman Alex Fletcher expressing himself at Henry’s Majestic.
Welcome to Atwater Alley, a long narrow corridor behind Henry’s kitchen – accessible on the Monticello Avenue side – that leads to a cozy, two-story den falling somewhere between modern Victorian and Old West saloon. Though larger, the dimly lit upstairs area is especially submarine-snug. And both stately back bars are a throwback; Fletcher thinks the upper one was actually shipped in from The Old Absinthe House in New Orleans. But incredibly, the space has sat here apparently unused for a decade — if it was ever used at all.
“This is kind of why I joined this whole team,” the typically understated Fletcher says. “I knew there was something really cool back here. I was like, `Oh, okay.’ It’s like a playground.”
It took a little work to revive, but the area is now ready to house two of tonight’s benefit pop-ups – the & and & cocktail lounge and the Booty Bar and Half-Mast Tiki Lounge. (The other three will be in Henry’s main bar area.)
For those unfortunate enough to miss tonight’s event, Fletcher plans to keep Atwater Alley going from here on out every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. “It’s a great little space,” he says.
Bolsa’s Kyle Hilla, left, is all smiles as the pop-up bar “draft” gets underway in preparation for Sunday’s annual fundraiser.
As Ryan Fussell of Fort Worth’s Bird Café put it, it was a veritable who’s-who of craft bartenders, dozens of them assembled on a weekday afternoon for the first of several steps toward a purpose greater than themselves. The site was Uptown’s Standard Pour, where five boards had been posted above the bar, each topped with the name of a trusty tipple maker.
Yes, there’s a story there, but here’s what you really need to know: That on Sunday, Dec. 14, five teams of drink-slingers will face off at Henry’s Majestic as part of the Trigger’s Toys Fantasy Draft Main Event – not only for your imbibing pleasure but for the benefit of Trigger’s Toys, a Dallas charity serving hospitalized kids and their families.
As if that’s not enough reason to get yourself over there, consider this: The agency’s third annual fundraiser will feature five pop-up bars of varying tongue-in-cheek themes, and if you’re wondering how Henry’s – the recently opened Knox-Henderson gastropub in the space once occupied by Acme F&B – is going to pull that off, you’re going to have come see for yourself the little ace that bar manager Alex Fletcher has been hiding up his sleeve.
Your five pop-up bar captains: Campbell, Sanders, Orth, Moore, Hilla. Yup, it’s going to be a party.
So on this afternoon, the gathered bartenders were at The Standard Pour for the “fantasy draft” that would produce the five teams of 13, along with bar concepts and sponsored spirit lineups. Organizer David Alan, the Austin-based Tipsy Texan himself, was here with his team, the lot of them dressed like referees. Actually, it wasn’t so much a draft as a draw, with each captain – Parliament’s Lucky Campbell, Bolsa’s Kyle Hilla, Knife’s Charlie Moore, LARK at the Park’s Matt Orth and, from Austin, Drink.Well’s Jessica Sanders – picking names out of a bowl to compile their teams. While most of the crews represent the Dallas-Fort Worth area, a number are coming in from elsewhere to aid the cause from places like Austin, San Antonio, San Diego and Los Angeles.
Knife’s Moore, left, meets outside The Standard Pour with members of his team, including Windmill Lounge’s Reith, Windmill co-founder Charlie Papaceno and Proof + Pantry’s Hendrix.
“Dang, my team looks good,” Moore crowed after drawing Fletcher’s name from the batch, adding to a lineup that already included Bolsa’s Spencer Shelton, Proof + Pantry’s Josh Hendrix and Michael Reith of the Windmill Lounge. “That’s it! It’s over. Everybody go home.”“Stacks on stacks,” Hendrix added.Your pop-up bar lineup will include a sports bar, honky-tonk saloon, nightclub, tiki bar and, of course, bespoke cocktail lounge. Each ephemeral entity is already being promoted on Facebook and other social media, and you’ll find them here:
The event runs from 8 pm to midnight at Henry’s Majestic, 4900 McKinney in Dallas. Pre-purchased tickets on Eventbrite (available here) are $20, which includes two drinks. You can also buy tickets at the door for $10, then spring for your drinks inside.
LARK’s Matt Orth, center, meets with his “drafted” team at The Standard Pour. The nightclub-themed pop-up will be called Klub Dreemz.
Along with donations from sponsoring spirit producers, last year’s bash at The Standard Pour pulled in a whopping $45,000 for Trigger’s Toys, which in addition to financial aid provides kids with toys and therapy aids. With the help of the bartenders giving their time on Sunday, founder Bryan Townsend – who named the agency for his dog after seeing the animal’s positive effect on a child in need of therapy – hopes to take that to new levels.
“Not only are you changing this industry,” an emotional Townsend told the group. “What we’re doing today will change lives.”
Booze news and adventures in cocktailing, based In Dallas, Texas, USA. By Marc Ramirez, your humble scribe and boulevardier. All content and photos mine unless otherwise indicated. http://typewriterninja.com
