11 March 5 - 11, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Rowing for a Lifeboat For restaurants, Deep Ellum is a punishing obstacle course, but a little help might be on the way. BY LISA PETTY W e want to love Deep El- lum, we really do. But when it continues throw- ing up roadblocks — both literal and figurative — be- tween us and our burgers and beer, it gets harder and harder to persuade our friend group to go there. Now, imagine if you owned a restaurant in the area. Recently, we drove up and down Main, Elm and Commerce streets, the neighbor- hood’s main thoroughfares. Commerce was, predictably, still covered in rubble. A graffiti-covered portable toilet was planted in the middle of the street, and the “Open for Business” signs looked a bit worse for wear. That said, Main and Elm Streets were pretty busy at about 2 p.m. on a weekday. We spotted folks walking and sitting on pa- tios along the block, as well as about half a dozen conspicuously placed police cruis- ers. Street parking was free and easy to find throughout the area. On the surface, when the sun is high and bright, all seems well. But street construc- tion and the inherent problems of being a nightlife beacon barely scratch the surface in terms of the challenges restaurants face. Of course, recent times have been tough on all food service businesses. We’ve written about tariffs, the lease cliff and higher prices for labor and goods. But when you add Deep Ellum-specific hurdles and (literal) road blocks to the mix, you’re looking at a punish- ing obstacle course. The area has lost some big-name spots in the last couple of years: Federales (July 2024), Niwa (June 2025), Fuzzy’s (Septem- ber 2025), STIRR (August 2025), Deep Su- shi (January 2026) and Dot’s Hop House (February 2026). Others have moved, and openings are slim by comparison. This past summer, the neighborhood reached a boiling point when the popular nightclub Rodeo Dallas drew young, rowdy crowds. There were multiple shootings in the entertainment district; police presence increased; roads were shut down. Many pointed to Rodeo as the epicenter of the chaos. Landlords filed suits to shut down the bar. But Deep Ellum isn’t a passing fad. The entertainment and music district, built in the late 19th century as a residential and commercial neighborhood largely popu- lated by Black people, is a survivor. A cradle for jazz in the ‘20s and a platform for punk in the ‘80s, Deep Ellum has grit. Despite the recent spate of closures (both businesses and streets), will a new initiative from the Deep Ellum Foundation smooth the way? Well, let’s just say you’ll wanna lace up your trainers for this one. Not So Easy T he food truck Easy Slider opened its first brick-and-mortar on Main Street in Deep Ellum in 2017. The restaurant relocated to East Side Avenue, about 1 mile away, last year. Co-owner Caroline Perini discussed the good times, the bad times, and the challenges they faced in their seven years in Deep Ellum. “We moved into a very large space that had never been a restaurant,” Perini says. “It took about a year to finish construction just because the building was so old.” She also notes that, without an alley or loading dock, the location always had challenges with food and beverage deliveries. That said, Easy Slider opened during a compara- tively thriving time; foot traffic was great, and neighbors like Pecan Lodge were drawing lines around the building. Perini remembers that it “felt good for a minute” through about 2019. After COVID hit, however, Easy Slider experienced “an immediate downhill pro- jection.” Challenges with crime and park- ing that had always been present — but not insurmountable — became too much for stressed-out pandemic-era consumers to bear. Easy Slider persisted for another couple of years before reaching a “crisis moment.” “We definitely ran the gauntlet in every category that everybody has ever brought up about Deep Ellum,” Perini says. “There were a lot of people working toward making it better, and it just never got there for us.” Steet Talk D an Murray is the co-owner of the bars Armoury D.E. on Elm Street and Ru- ins on Commerce Street. The two venues have served up drinks, food and mu- sic in Deep Ellum for 10 and seven years, re- spectively. Murray’s connection to the neighborhood goes back even further; he got his first tattoo at Taboo in 1997. “Deep Ellum is meant to be for musicians and artists and small business people to go in there and be able to do weird stuff,” Mur- ray says. “It’s supposed to be a little weird, a little freaky, and that’s why it’s been around for 150 years.” On the plus side, and unlike Easy Slider, Murray reports recovering “pretty quickly” from COVID-era issues. But that’s where the good news ends. For him, a bigger Courtesy PILF restaurant group | CITY OF ATE | t Dish Cane Rosso and other Deep Ellum businesses are looking forward to neighborhood improvements. >> p12
