Axe News
Newest amusement for Dallas' crazy fun Deep Ellum: axe-throwing bar
There's another axe-throwing concept coming to Dallas, in the ever-evolving neighborhood of Deep Ellum.
Called Whiskey Hatchet, it's a bar-combination-axe-throwing place that will open on the southern edge, in a warehouse at 2801 Virgil St., south of Canton Street.
A spokesperson confirms that the bar will open, with an estimated date of late spring or early summer.
Whiskey Hatchet is a spin-off of an axe-throwing bar in Florida called Chops + Hops Axe Throwing Lodge, which opened in Fort Lauderdale in 2019.
Chops + Hops was founded by a trio of entrepreneurs, Clay Rusch, Ryan Lavernia, and Chase Walton, who had seen other axe-throwing places around the country and felt like they could bring something extra.
They opened as the first full liquor axe-throwing bar in Florida as well as one of the first nationwide. They also added a strong hospitality component to the genre. Walton has a food-and-beverage background, and that can be seen in their focus on craft cocktails and craft beer.
Cocktails include an Old-Fashioned made with "flamed" lemon; the Drunk Uncle with ginger whiskey, elderflower, muddled cucumber, mint, and lemon; an espresso martini; and frozen drinks such as the FUBAR, with rum and watermelon.
At their Florida location, they also offer a rotating selection of food trucks, live music, and pop-up shops for local artisans.
Their axe-throwing sessions fold in interactive games and competitions.
Sessions at Chops + Hops run 90 minutes long and range from $25-40 per person, depending on day and time. Cocktails average out at about $10.
But they don't charge cover, and you don't have to throw axes to enjoy the bar.
Rusch says that the Deep Ellum location will offer everything Chops does, "but bigger and better," he says.
They re-named it Whiskey Hatchet as part of an initiative to take the concept nationwide, and are working on other locations to be announced in the spring.
The bar will join other entertaining concepts in Deep Ellum such as Punch Bowl Social, which combines eating and drinking with bowling, and Upstairs Circus, which combines drinking with making crafts projects.
A number of axe-throwing places have sprung up in DFW in the past three years including Bad Axe in East Dallas, Flying Axe Factory in Fort Worth, Stumpy's Hatchet House in Irving, and Dallas Axe Throwing in Richardson.
Chef Shirley Chung.Photo by Samantha Marie Photography
Chef Shirley Chung is known as the "Dumpling Queen of Los Angeles."Photo by Samantha Marie Photography