JFK News
Fun bar Jack Ruby's Saloon debuts in downtown Dallas near Dealey Plaza
"Walking" Frito pie
There's a new restaurant-bar in downtown Dallas' West End with a dead-on name, given the location: Called Jack Ruby's Saloon, it's at 1710 N. Record St. #110 — mere blocks from The Sixth Floor Museum and Dealey Plaza, making for a convenient pit-stop on any JFK-themed tour.
Jack Ruby's has been in the works since before the pandemic, and is currently in what owner Joe Groves amusingly calls a "delicate" opening stage (softer than "soft"). He's prepping for a grand event on New Year's Eve, and thereafter it'll be open for lunch and dinner, with live entertainment — primarily country music — every night.
Its creation was inspired by customer requests that Groves and his staff would field at Ellen's, the all-day restaurant he opened in the West End in 2012.
"One of the most common questions we receive, especially from customers who are not familiar with the area, is, 'Where can we go and hear country music?'" Groves says. "We'd send people to Cowboys on Northwest Highway, but that's more of a dance/meat-market bar. There is a shortage of country & Western music venues in Dallas."
"I like country music," he says. "I used to live in Amarillo for a while where they had a lot of great establishments with a country-Western flair that were welcoming and diverse, and I realized, there is not a honky tonk bar to sit and have a nice whiskey and decent food and listen to a good country band."
His vision is Tootsie's, the famed honky-tonk bar in Nashville. "It's just a place where everyone is comfortable and people can listen to live music all day long," he says.
But Jack Ruby's will also host comedy one night per week, and an "amateur night" — not karaoke — backed by a house band.
The menu features what he calls "pub food": burgers, hot dogs, chicken wings — "what you'd get when you're having beers," he says.
There's also pimento cheese, Frito chili pie, loaded queso, a fried bologna sandwich, and JR's nachos.
Beyond the proximity to Dealey Plaza, the West End seemed like the right location, period-wise.
"The architecture and age of the buildings lends itself to that late 1800s-early 1900s era — it seems like a good place for a bar like this," he says. "That's been my approach, I gave it a weathered vibe, I wanted to make it feel like it was 100 years old."
He's also not passing up the opportunity for kitsch such as a T-shirt they sell that says "I took a shot at Jack Ruby's."
"The Sixth Floor museum is the most visited spot in Dallas, it remains of interest," he says. "I'm a history buff and I love the weirdness of Jack Ruby, and love that he owned a bar."
Mural on the wall at Belle Vie Bistro RockwallFacebook