Trader Vic's, Dallas, TX (restaurant)

What a mess, Paved paradise and put in a Ping Pong Bar?

Finally, someone figured out how to work ping pong into a licensed establishment! I'm just glad I got to see the place a couple years back, even if only once. It was so much nicer than the new TV incarnations I've been to.

Brackets on YouTube

The terms "Mixologist","Fine Dining", and "Sports Bar" don't mix.

unbelievable - what a bunch of 100% retarded fools full of shxxx

On 2010-12-10 14:31, Kenike wrote:
Brackets is now open.

"Desecrating the space formerly occupied by Trader Vic's" (not my words)

I'm not gonna try it. You try it.

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[ Edited by: Kenike 2010-12-10 14:35 ]

On 2010-12-10 19:00, abstractiki wrote:
That place looks like crap, I hope they loose a million dollars on the deal.

http://www.dallasvoice.com/munch-madness-brackets-run-upscale-sports-bar-swing-1067513.html

As horrible as this all is, I heed no ill will towards the new venture, it's just a new business trying its luck. I don't think they had anything to do with the failure of the Vic's at that location. It simply did not attract enough customers to survive, even though it seems it fought hard.

Which does not lessen the tragedy of an original Tiki temple that had survived the vagaries of time and taste for decades to be replaced by its arch nemesis, the Sports Bar.

BELOW IS MY "SERMON" TO THE RECENT CLOSING OF TRADER VIC'S:

I haven't been on this forum in a while because I simply got busy working, etc. I dropped into T.V. on Mockingbird one afternoon when it had re-opened just to look around and check it out. It is a shame that I didn't have my camera with me. I am a musician who works at the hours most folks are out having a good time. So I was unable to make any of the gatherings at TV although I tried to make a couple of them.

I drive by on Mockingbird several times a week and noticed things changing in the front of the restaurant that did not look good to me. So in the past few minutes, I have read the last seven pages of this thread. I am really heart broken about the actual closing. But I am sicker at the way our culture has changed, that televisions and sports are now the rule rather than the exception.

From 1982 to 1992, I was the featured pianist at the beautiful Fairmont Hotel at Ross and Akard. I saw plenty of change even in those ten years. We remodeled the Fairmont lobby back in 1987 and they converted a retail space into a temporary sports bar. We all thought it was a stupid idea that would fail quickly. But they kept the sports bar open. Then a couple of years later, the Fairmont closed the beautiful Venetian Room where you could enjoy big-band music every night and see EVERY major star except Frank Sinatra. They closed it!!!

Then around the year 2000, the new corporate owners eliminated all of the live music, the piano in the lobby bar, the piano in the Pyramid dining room and live singers on the weekends. Suddenly, the Fairmont which had been noted for great entertainment in Dallas suddenly did not even have a piano player. That generation of businessmen would rather watch the game on television than listen to live music.

Before long, there were big-screen televisions at each end of the once classy lobby bar. The 5-star Pyramid Restaurant (men must wear jackets) was turned into the Pyramid Grill, tennis shorts accepted.

Dakota's Steak House across from the Fairmont used to have live piano music 6 nights a week. When I started back there around four years ago, I only played Saturday nights. Finally they added Friday to the schedule. But it will never again have music six nights. In the past, folks at least wore nice slacks for dinner at a classy joint above a certain price point. In today's culture, everyone is SO casual. I am surprised seeing how some people actually dress to go out and spend $50 a head for dinner.

It's a shame that Trader Vic's kept the high dinner prices after the economy collapsed. But it is even sadder that after all these years with a perfectly preserved T.V. restaurant, they gutted the place instead of simply adjusting the menu and prices and doing a citywide advertising campaign to bring in the new customers.

I'm glad I got to see the restaurant at least once before it was decimated and the pigs moved in.

How the mighty have fallen. It's so sad.

End of my sermon!

Don

Airstream FM .com
Classic Easy Listening
Beautiful Music Radio

[ Edited by: CallDon 2012-01-19 23:36 ]

YUCK!!!!!!!!!!

Today I spotted a relic supposedly saved from TV Dallas' destruction. Craiglist New Braunfels: http://austin.craigslist.org/for/2970722832.html

On 2012-04-22 14:59, Chuck Lava wrote:
Today I spotted a relic supposedly saved from TV Dallas' destruction. Craiglist New Braunfels: http://austin.craigslist.org/for/2970722832.html

He's listed it on Ebay a couple of times and there's a thread about it here.

It's a bit pricey for that kind of tiki but it would be nice if he had a permanent home.

Apparently, he thinks the reason he couldn't sell it on eBay, was that he wasn't asking enough. I think he had it starting for $500 on eBay - no takers.

Especially since this is NOT from the original, old Dallas Vic's, but an import from when it re-opened.
It's a Poly-Asian Tiki in the same vein than this guy at the Vally-Ho Vic's:

The craftsmen who carve these cannot deny their cultural training and the facial features of Asian temple images always creep in.
Here you can see it in the eyes...

...but especially in the curved, human-like lips. Such naturalistic human features are decidedly un-Tiki.This Dallas guy even has a double upper lip, which makes him look like he's wearing a mustache. Even the root ball hairdo can't hide his heritage.

I took my parent's to Don the Beachcomber for Christmas dinner yesterday and on the trip over I asked them if they had ever been to a Polynesian restaurant and they said that they had gone to Trader Vic's quite a bit in the 1970's. My brother and I were always asking them to take us there because we loved the huge flaming tiki torches and moai that stood guard. Alas, they never took us and they never told me that they went until now.
They don't have any pictures or souvenirs of their visits to TV Dallas, but they thought that Don's looked a lot like it.

I found an old postcard from the original Trader Vic's at the Dallas Hilton, a 1970s era photo.

DC

On 2017-10-17 11:17, Dustycajun wrote:
I found an old postcard from the original Trader Vic's at the Dallas Hilton, a 1970s era photo.

DC

So, it DOES exist.

Great find and thanks for sharing!