Dive bar news
Sunset Lounge space on Ross Avenue makes way for pretty dive bar
An address on Ross Avenue that's had some hit-and-miss moments has a new bar-restaurant tenant moving in. The address is 3030 Ross Ave., most recently home to Sunset Lounge, which itself had numerous owners over the years, from Kyle Noonan and Josh Sepkowitz of Bowl & Barrel fame to Tiffanee and Richard Ellman (Oak, Pakpao, etc.).
Whichever mysterious entity last owned Sunset got locked out in June.
The new concept is called The Pretty Diver, and comes from promoter Matt Jones and his partner, Steve Reese, who previously owned such clubs as OE Penguin and Club 7. Ambitiously, they hope to open by Texas-OU weekend, which is October 14.
"We're calling this Dallas' first neighborhood glam dive bar," Jones says. "We liked the idea of having a place to hang out that was both pretty and low-key. It'll have dive bar prices, and a dive bar vibe, but not with the usual dive bar crowd."
There'll be dive bar food including burgers and chicken wings. There'll be a simple bar menu, a "hot staff," a pool table, and an assortment of bar games like Golden Tee.
"It's a cliché, I guess, but we're talking about Champagne on a beer budget," Jones says. "We'll be running it differently than the last folks. They kept trying to make it a nightclub, but the neighborhood didn't want that there."
The Ross Avenue corridor has seen lots of newness, from the deluge of boxy 5-story residential buildings to openings such as the funky bar East Bound and Down, and Republic Ranch, the Texas-themed restaurant from State Fair fried food king Abel Gonzales.
Pretty Diver's soundtrack will be country rock. "We're not trying to do a club night," Jones says. "We've been doing that since the early 2000s where you have different themed nights. We're just at a different point."