Cocktail bar Hide is back open in Dallas, after closing in Deep Ellum and relocating to Greenville Avenue.
Owner Nick Backlund says the new neighborhood is better for the restaurant/bar, which now opens at 8 a.m. and closes at midnight. Soon, they’ll add a coffee and espresso bar.
“I felt like in Deep Ellum, you’re pigeonholed to late-night, and that’s pretty much it. On Greenville, I saw an opportunity where people could connect over a cup of coffee at 10 a.m. or connect over a cocktail at 10 p.m.,” he says.
“Really, it goes back to that connection with people.”
Hide was — and should continue to be — thought of as one of Dallas’ best cocktail bars. The name Hide is a nod to the bar’s behind-the-scenes prep hidden from view.
“We use a lot of centrifuges and roto-vaporizers,” Backlund says, “to make cocktails taste really, really good and to make the bar program super efficient. A lot of places will put that out on the bar and lead with that.” Backlund says he’d rather remove that potential pretension.
“Hide came from the sense that it was more than met the eye,” he says.
The bar opened quietly on Aug. 23, 2022, after closing more than a year prior in Deep Ellum. It took the place of Eastside Social, a short-lived, two-story bar that was better known as Afghan restaurant Nora in earlier years. (Nora has moved to the Bishop Arts District and remains open there.)
The new Hide is much bigger and brighter than the original, with a 125-foot-long bank of windows downstairs and a spacious rooftop patio that opened last weekend.
Its U-shaped bar seats 24 people and is probably the best seat in the house.
Drinkers will likely come for the list of 32 cocktails, but there’s also a menu with a burger and other bites. New to this location are thin-crust pizzas.
Cocktails range from odd to interesting to familiar. About 60% of the cocktail menu from the former bar remains, Backlund says, including the popular Old-Fashioned served in a flask with a Hide-branded orange peel inside. Another returning cocktail is the Green Tara, a vodka and jasmine green tea mix that Backlund says was a fan favorite.
One he recommends to cocktail enthusiasts is a rum drink called Lucid Dreams with orange, vanilla, mandarin, passionfruit and egg white. He says it’s an “easy sipper” with a velvety texture.
Backlund says his restaurant isn’t chasing drink trends despite the hidden, cheffy preparations in the back.
“I’m not a trendy person and I’ve never set out to be,” he says. “We want to be a timeless place where you can come in and have a really good time.”
Hide is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week at 1928 Greenville Ave., Dallas. It opened Aug. 23, 2022.
