Prohibition, the downtown bar formerly operated as a vintage speakeasy, closed a few weeks ago. D broke the news last week, saying the closure was a week or two old. This weekend a bartender at City Tavern next door told me it was closer to three. Whenever the closure happened, Prohibition is now a closed bar behind a nameless roll-up steel gate. It could be a shuttered shoe store.
Prohibition is likely better known by its former name, The Chesterfield. The bar was opened in 2011 by partners Eddie Campbell and Edward Bailey, and was instantly revered as one of Dallas' best cocktail spots. It didn't stay that way for long.
Campbell and Bailey's relationship quickly deteriorated, and Campbell was eventually removed from the property. The bar was subsequently rebranded as Prohibition, and craft cocktails were replaced with Moscow mules available in a rainbow of flavors like 7-Eleven Slurpees.
Campbell's removal lead him to file suit in August 2013, but the case was dismissed in November at his own direction. Campbell said he had no comment on the matter, and Bailey could not be reached for comment.
Either way, there's an attractive bar decked out in velvet and wood with a full kitchen sitting idle downtown. Maybe someone will roll up that steel gate and give the place a fair shake without resorting to cliché and dated drinks? I hear that the whole prohibition-era cocktail movement is on its way out in some cities. Maybe we could get a head start?
