Saint Valentine To Open Soon in East Dallas

Congratulations, East Dallas. If you ever lie awake at night staring at your ceiling and dreaming about a neighborhood cocktail den with the refined indifference of Tiny Victories and drinks from the skilled hands of one of Dallas' best barkeeps, Gabe Sanchez, then Christmas is coming early this year. People living in other parts of the city, you should all riot.

Saint Valentine, named after a small West Texas town halfway between Los Angeles and New Orleans, is waiting for a few final pieces of equipment to open at 4800 Bryan St. in the old Top Round location, a block from Jimmy's Food Store. Co-owners Ryan Payne, of Tiny Victories, and Sanchez hope to open their new cocktail den later this month.

Both Payne and Sanchez have a long history on the Dallas bar scene. Sanchez's Black Swan in Deep Ellum (opened from 2010 to 2020) heralded an elevated style of drinking in Dallas: PreAP cocktails. More recently, Sanchez was the general manager at Midnight Rambler, a chic bar below The Joule Hotel downtown with a Great Gatsby vibe. He still consults for the bar.

Payne has long tended bars and was most recently an operating partner at Tiny Victories in Oak Cliff. Both of their previous projects were high on our Top 100 Bars lists (even though technically it's not a ranked list — just maybe in our hearts).

Sanchez and Payne have been longtime friends and started talking about doing a project together.

"I've always been a fan of what he had done over there," Sanchez says of Tiny Victories, "because when he started over there, there wasn't anything. I lived down the street and It wasn't necessarily a nighttime destination, and what he was able to do on that level in that little space was pretty rad."

One day on the golf course, Sanchez suggested a project that would marry the basics of Payne's work with Black Swan and Midnight Rambler.

As for the location, they see East Dallas as a burgeoning area.

"It's almost parallel to what happened at Tiny [Victories]," Payne says of the new space. "Whenever we got there, there was nothing around it. And then they started popping up these half-million dollar townhomes all over the place."

Saint Valentine will be a 2,400-square-foot bar with two patios. Big cozy booths line the interior. As for an opening date, they're hoping for the weekend before Thanksgiving.

"We're waiting on bar equipment," Payne says. "We're very far away from 2020, and sometimes in this industry, we're still very close to the end of 2020 in terms of how things take a little bit longer. We were trying to get open next week-ish. Realistically, we're probably looking at that third weekend of November, right before Thanksgiving."

Sanchez will have a couple of drinks from the Black Swan and, in line with his previous spots, will focus on guest interaction and experience, which has also never suffered at Tiny Victories. In addition to the cocktail menu, there will be craft beer along with a fortified wine section; vermouth, sherries and aperitifs.

There will be food, too, from chef Jordan Edwards, who has worked at The Mitchell. The menu will have elevated bar food: "stuff we like to eat." They're still working on the final details, but it will lean towards "sandwiches, burgers, noodles or tinned fish late at night."

Stay tuned for an opening announcement and first look.