The Ginger Man in Dallas is gone, may it rest in pieces.
The orange house-turned-bar has been bulldozed. Crews are hauling off what remains of the Boll Street bar that opened nearly three decades ago, in the early ‘90s.
The Ginger Man was one of Dallas’ earliest craft beer bars, known for its cluster of beers on tap and its shaded backyard. It was a spirited spot for a game of darts. And it seemed to invite all kinds: businesspeople, beer snobs, Uptown youngsters and more.
The property at the corner of Boll and Howell streets in Uptown Dallas was sold to developer Stream Realty in February 2020. It will eventually become part of the sizable redo of the Quadrangle across the street.
The intention was for the Ginger Man to continue operating for an undetermined time, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The bar shut down at midnight on March 16, 2020, as all restaurants and bars were instructed to.
The Ginger Man started selling food, beer and wine curbside, but by March 28, pubs were all temporarily closed. It was a roller-coaster ride through May and June, when bars reopened, then had to shorten their hours because of a pandemic-related curfew.
Bars closed again in late June, in accordance with a mandate from Gov. Greg Abbott to try to stop the spread of the virus. The Ginger Man in Uptown never reopened.
I walked by on March 8, checking on it at the request of a Dallas Morning News reader, and the front porch stairs were barely visible under a blanket of leaves. The front windows were boarded up. Although some bars and restaurants have been resurrected in the past week, after Abbott lifted the mask mandate, the Dallas Ginger Man is not on that list.
Ramsey March, managing director and partner at Stream Realty, says the owners of Ginger Man “elected to close permanently a few months ago and the structure was unsuitable for another tenant, so we decided to move forward with demolition.”
March, who oversees office and mixed-use development for Stream, says the developer isn’t ready to announce what will be built on the site.
The Quadrangle will be redesigned to be more walkable, with less emphasis on the ring of parking around the perimeter. At least seven new restaurant and retail concepts are expected to be installed on the 4-acre plot.
The Quadrangle construction project will require that some restaurants be demolished. Dream Cafe owner Mary O’Brien has already made plans to move her longtime breakfast spot to McKinney Avenue, where Christies Sports Bar & Grill was. (Christies closed in 2020 and reopened on Greenville Avenue in early 2021.)
As for the Ginger Man brand, the bar in Las Colinas remains in operation. Locations in Southlake and Plano are temporarily closed, according to the website. An affiliated Ginger Man in Fort Worth closed in 2018.
For more food news, follow Sarah Blaskovich on Twitter at @sblaskovich.
Another longtime beer bar in North Texas, the Flying Saucer in Addison, closed recently. Details here.
