The Stoneleigh P in Dallas should’ve opened almost exactly 50 years ago, on April Fools’ Day 1973. Actor Jack Nicholson was supposed to attend the grand opening for the Uptown Dallas bar that would eventually be known for its burgers, beers and bizarre mix of people.
But the April 1, 1973, opening didn’t happen — something about a missing floor drain and an unsatisfactory inspection. Nicholson missed the big day, and the Stoneleigh P opened about two weeks later, on April 15, in its own offbeat way and not according to plan.
Which might be a good way to describe the next 50 years at the P.
“We were on the fringe,” says owner Tom Garrison. He would have preferred to be on Knox Street or Oak Lawn Avenue, but what he could afford was $23,000 to spruce up a former pharmacy on Maple Avenue. Current-day Uptown Dallas is filled with skyscrapers and restaurants, but back then, it had gravel roads and a “counter culture” personality.
“If somebody was willing to pick up some garbage around here, we’d give them a bowl of lentils and maybe even an iced tea,” Garrison says.
Over its 50 years, the Stoneleigh P has been home base for a host of curious characters — real people with nicknames like Texaco Becky. It got a reputation for being a hole-in-the-wall with a great burger, and its patrons didn’t seem to care who was who. Journalists hung out next to millionaires. Celebrities ate here, too, like Lauren Bacall, Luke and Owen Wilson, and Kenny Loggins. It also hosted fundraisers for politicians Kinky Friedman and Jimmy Carter.
Now’s a good time to scoot into a squeaky booth — yeah, sorry, the jukebox doesn’t work anymore — and celebrate the Stoneleigh P’s 50 years. The bar will close before it turns 51. Garrison says the landlord won’t let them re-sign a lease, and he and daughter Laura Garrison, 28, are planning to relocate within four blocks of the original location.
Tom Garrison never thought the bar would last this long anyway. He says it’ll be in better hands with Laura in charge.
“Laura first danced here with me,” Tom says, cradling his arms and showing how he danced zydeco when Laura was a baby.
“She was raised here. And she’s going to be a better operator than me. I can tell.”
The story behind the name
We’ve called the Stoneleigh P the “grande dame of old Dallas bars.”
Some think the Stoneleigh P got its name from the 100-year-old Stoneleigh Hotel across the street. That fancy place? Garrison might say. No, the Stoneleigh P was once the Stoneleigh Pharmacy, a drugstore.
The pharmacy sign was still up as Garrison and his investors were getting ready to open in 1973.
“So all we did was black out ‘harmacy,’” he says.
He hung on to the theme, and in a 1990s photo shoot of the staff, everyone dressed as drugstore cowboys, wearing hats and looking like outlaws.
The building caught fire in the middle of the night in January 1980, and the P was a total loss. The landlord planned to open a car wash in its place, and that would be that, but Tom Garrison came up with a new plan to revive his old bar. He replaced the burned-out hole with another come-as-you-are bar. It was a little bigger, but not a lot different. Garrison bought new copies of Playboy to sit on the magazine rack next to literary journals.
Nobody went to the P because of the way it looked anyway, wrote Dallas Morning News architecture critic David Dillon in 1982. He described the old building — before the fire — as “a collision between a 1920s retail strip and a Tudor mansion,” and that was not a compliment.
Despite the P’s anti-establishment persona, it’s been talked about by people of all ages, all around the world. CNN took notice when the Garrisons wouldn’t let customers play Mariah Carey’s song “All I Want for Christmas is You” until Dec. 1. Despite this apparent war on Christmas, Laura Garrison acted as the spokesperson on that one. She said dryly: “I don’t hate Christmas.”
Perhaps that’s what inspired the Mariah Carey drag show that followed. The Stoneleigh P also hosted zydeco parties and a 24-hour dance-off. Tom Garrison shrugs when asked for an explanation for most of it. “It was fun,” he says.
No ketchup, no Coors
For decades, the P was beloved for its hamburger served with Creole mustard and house-made mayo. The News declared it the best burger in the city in 1990. By 1998, The New York Times took notice, which sent people from all over the country to Dallas’ Maple Avenue.
That came with problems, though: Oklahoma-born Tom Garrison doesn’t believe ketchup belongs on a burger. He claims he was slugged by a customer after she asked for ketchup and he responded, “What are you, a Yankee?”
Customers who required ketchup would bring their own bottles or packets, sometimes leaving them behind for like-minded diners. It wasn’t until Laura Garrison got older that her dad changed his mind: She said a bar with a great burger needed to have French fries. And if they were going to install a fryer and serve fries, they’d need ketchup.
Tom Garrison complied.
He also still holds that the bar shouldn’t sell Coors Light. As the story goes, a Coors Light rep would win a trip to Hawaii if she could convince Tom Garrison to add it to the Stoneleigh P’s menu. Tom Garrison didn’t want to, but he bought one case so the rep could go on the trip.
Once it was gone, it was never replaced.
“If there’s one thing he won’t do, it’s add Coors,” Laura Garrison says.
Another 50 years?
“I never dreamed I’d be in the honky tonk business for 50 years,” Tom Garrison says. The Stoneleigh P is not a honky tonk; it never has been one, but Garrison likes the phrase.
Perhaps more importantly, the bar never seemed like it would outlive its owner.
“It’s funny,” Garrison says, musing on the 50th anniversary. “You worry about the 10 years or the five years left on your lease. Day to day things. You don’t think in terms of something that long.”
At age 81, he’s still inside the bar more days than not. He’s been involved in a handful of bars over the years, including some in San Antonio and Oklahoma City that are still alive today.
But it’s inside this former pharmacy, which once was in an edgy part of Dallas, where Tom Garrison says he’s been “so lucky to be here, with all these wonderful people.”
“Now it’s up to her,” he says, grinning at his daughter.
Stoneleigh P is at 2926 Maple Ave., Dallas — for now. Stay tuned on where it will move.
The 50th anniversary party is 3 p.m. to close on April 15.
