Dallas Bars Feel the Chill of Winter, So Save a Bar and Go Have a Drink

January and February are hard times for the restaurant and bar industry. Loose spending and overindulgence during the holidays have many tapping the brakes after New Year's Day. Add Dry January and bad weather to the mix, and bars often struggle during the first part of the year — quite a bit as it turns out.

From December 2022 to January 2023, restaurants and bars in Dallas saw a sharp decrease in liquor sales, according to data from the Texas Comptroller (data from December 2023 on isn't available at the time of writing). Sales dropped from $106.8 million in December 2022 to $95.7 million in January 2023, a loss of more than $11 million or 10% in one month.

In February 2023, sales stayed depressed, at $92 million. Although just 28 days, the month includes Mardi Gras and Valentine's Day, traditionally good days for restaurants and bars.

That data set includes 1,344 restaurants and bars in the city of Dallas that sell booze. We're going out on a limb in assigning figures to bars because there are wild variations from, say, Nick and Sam's to Lakewood Landing, but that's an average drop of around $8,200 in one month per bar from December 2022 to January 2023.

March is when the good times spring back. Last March, Dallas restaurants and bars pulled in $108 million.

Despite these fluctuations, there are bills to pay for both the bar owners and service industry employees during the dark, cold days of January and February.

Allen Falkner has an ownership stake in The Nines and Charlie's Star Lounge in Deep Ellum. He gets calls this time of year, and others walk into the bar, looking for work because things have seemingly dried up at their current job.

His advice? Sit tight. "The last couple of days, I've got emails," Falkner says. "Last night somebody came in looking for work, and today somebody came in looking for work."

He focuses on keeping a happy staff together, making sure the personality mix is right. He knows it's a temporary dip.

"For me, it's more valuable to keep staff than trying to find staff because, honestly, right now there's people looking for work everywhere," Falkner says. "So you can always find somebody, but really it's more about longevity. So it's not like there are people out there looking for work. But again, I'm not really interested in filling the place with just people."

Inflation is another cog in the wheel. Joel Roland, who owns Yellow Rosa Cantina in Deep Ellum, says that despite seeing record sales in December, high costs have cut into profits. Combined with Dry January, it's a double whammy.

"Just everything's more expensive, and so I think people just spend a lot on Christmas and then they have to recover," Roland says. "And I think that Dry January is a good excuse for not spending money."

During this time of year, he tries to incentivize employees with bonuses and is going all in on Valentine's Day.

Even updating menus with mocktails, which the Observer has covered extensively, doesn't seem to be able to lure people in. But the idea is to get people out to restaurants and bars, even if it's not the same experience they may have on a patio on a sunny March afternoon.

Michelle Honea is the co-owner of The Grapevine Bar, which originally opened on Maple Avenue the same year Clinton beat Dole for a second term. The highly regarded establishment recently moved from small-ish confines to a spacious new building on Butler Street.

Honea says the bar has long been affected by bad weather; the courtyard at the old space was bigger than the interior, and heaters and fans couldn't keep up with the temperature extremes.

"Our business has always been seasonal. so we're used to it, and our staff know that winter is going to be slow if the weather is very cold or rainy or snowy," Honea says.

With the new space, they're experimenting with shift schedules, spreading hours out evenly.

"We don't just schedule blindly. We pay attention because everyone has bills to pay and our staff are the heart and soul of our business," she says. In her experience, weather is much more of an issue than Dry January.

On a recent popular Facebook post, Falkner offered that the grass isn't greener anywhere else, so buckle down and find other projects that need to be handled. He also advises that a little shameless self-promotion might help, "Trust me, people want to come see you. Remind them."

Oh, yeah, let's go have a drink. For the city.