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Punch Bowl Social closes its $2.5 million location in Fort Worth, just 10 weeks after opening

It appears to be the first closure for the Denver-based chain of “eatertainment” restaurants. The Dallas location remains open.

Last summer, Punch Bowl Social rolled into D-FW in a big way: A $5 million location of the “eatertainment” chain opened in Deep Ellum in June, followed by a smaller, $2.5 million Punch Bowl in Fort Worth just a month later.

But Texas hasn’t been all fun and games for this Denver-based chain of dining-drinking-bowling-gaming emporiums. In September, the Deep Ellum restaurant earned my first and only zero-star review in The Dallas Morning News.

And on Wednesday, Punch Bowl Social Fort Worth abruptly closed after just 10 weeks in business, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

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It appears to be the first-ever closure for Punch Bowl, a chain that has been lauded by business publications around the country for its swift expansion and success as a “millennial magnet.” In July, the same month it opened its 12,500-square-foot restaurant on Foch Street in Fort Worth, the company gained a potential $140 million investment from Cracker Barrel, which took a 20% ownership stake.

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Punch Bowl’s general manager in Dallas and corporate representatives in Denver declined interview requests, but provided a statement from the company’s chief operating officer, Peter Gaudreau, who hinted that another Fort Worth location may be in the works:

“After service on Nov. 5th we made the difficult decision to close our Fort Worth location. We opened in the West 7th area with the best intentions and deeply appreciate the support that the neighbors and community showed us. Unfortunately, we didn’t believe we could be as successful as we wanted in that particular location. We very much believe in Fort Worth and know we can be as successful there as we are in Dallas and other markets. It is our hope to relocate to another part of the city in the near future.”

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An artist's rendering of the now-closed Fort Worth location
An artist's rendering of the now-closed Fort Worth location(Punch Bowl Social / Punch Bowl Social)

The Dallas location remains open. The two-story, 25,000-square-foot restaurant includes bowling alleys, karaoke rooms, darts boards, a putting green, board games and other diversions, in addition to an actual sit-down restaurant with a menu by celebrity chef Hugh Acheson (it is now overseen by Sheamus Feeley, a former executive chef with the Hillstone Restaurant Group).

Punch Bowl is at the forefront of a national trend of mega-restaurants where you can eat, drink and play in the same place. Though the concept originated in the 1970s with restaurants like Dave and Buster’s, it got new life in 2012, when Punch Bowl founder Robert Thompson hit on the idea of luring millennials away from their screens with a serious restaurant that also provides an “experience,” a modern take on the Victorian tradition of socializing over a punch bowl.

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The first Punch Bowl Social opened that year in Denver and it’s been expanding ever since. Now there are 18 locations across the country, and six more scheduled to open through 2020, including one in downtown Austin in December. It will be the second Austin location; the first, in the Domain shopping center, reopened last month after a retooling that included adding an indoor mini-golf course and retraining staff to treat guests “more personally,” an employee said.

The approach has earned Punch Bowl a trophy shelf of awards, including a 50 Most Innovative Companies citation in Fast Company, a Hot Concepts Award from Nation's Restaurant News and inclusion in Inc. magazine's 5,000 fastest-growing businesses.

Bowling lanes, like this one at Punch Bowl Social Dallas, are one of many  entertainment...
Bowling lanes, like this one at Punch Bowl Social Dallas, are one of many entertainment options in the chain's restaurants.(Allison Slomowitz / Special Contributor)

Closing Fort Worth, apparently the first time the company has shuttered a location, happened a day after a critical investor, Sardar Biglari, requested records relating to Cracker Barrel’s agreement to invest up to $140 million in Punch Bowl, Restaurant Business website reported. “The Punch Bowl investment in particular seemed to come out of nowhere,” the story said. “Cracker Barrel’s stock is down 9% since that investment.”

Punch Bowl’s success rests largely on food and drink: All the games and hoopla are merely the “cheese in the mousetrap” that lures millennials in to order drinks and dinner, Thompson said in a 2017 interview on Food Newsfeed, an industry website. Food and drinks account for 89% of Punch Bowl’s revenue.

But based on my experiences at the Dallas location, where the drinks were watery and the food was lackluster or worse, they are counting on millennials having too much fun to notice.