Investors hopeful despite shake-up
Billy Bob Barnett closed venue two months after opening
By KAREN ROBINSON-JACOBS and TINEY RICCIARDI Staff Writers

BIG BEAT DALLAS

Call it Billy Bob’s latest showstopper.

Three decades after Billy Bob Barnett’s namesake honky-tonk in Fort Worth imploded into bankruptcy, the “iconic” and “legendary” placemaker abruptly and unceremoniously shuttered his latest creation.

Big Beat Dallas, a collection of five restaurants, bars and a country market featuring live music, opened to great fanfare and civic pride about eight weeks ago at the center of the Toyota Music Factory entertainment district in Irving.

A cryptic Facebook post May 29 served as a cyber pink slip for the workforce, which at one time included more than 300 workers. The note, signed by Barnett, said the venues were being forced to close due to a host of landlord-sponsored factors including an adjacent patio that was too small and too few dedicated parking spots.

The city of Irving, which owns the Music Factory development, has up to $80 million riding on the project, which has been at least a decade in the making. The launch was at least partly designed to add a regional draw in the community that hosted the Dallas Cowboys before the team moved its home field to Arlington.

But before the shovels ramped up in 2016, things went south. There were lawsuits and allegations of mismanagement.

Barnett was a key player initially and remained on board as a tenant when ARK Group stepped in to serve as the new developer. 

And it appears there could be more legal wrangling in the future. Last week, a group calling itself Irving Taxpayers Matter sued the developer, arguing that a hasty construction schedule to meet the city’s deadlines left out some key features of the plan. ARK Group has said that’s not true, but the lawsuit seeks to block the developer from getting up to $44 million in taxpayer money promised by the city of Irving. Irving Taxpayers Matter is being represented by Barnett’s lawyer.

Now, even as the Toyota Music Factory attracts largerthan-expected crowds and names such as North Texas’ own Leon Bridges and outlaw country darling Nikki Lane, the loss of Big Beat Dallas leaves at least a temporary hole in the heart of the squarish, low-slung project.

The development includes at least a dozen other restaurants and an anchor tenant — a music pavilion booked by Live Nation — which continued to pack in patrons over the first weekend without Billy Bob.

“It’s all about the product and service,” said Noah Lazes president of the North Carolina-based ARK Group, noting that tenant Thirsty Lion Gastropub & Grill served up more than 700 diners on a recent weeknight post-Big Beat.

“Sure, name recognition is helpful at times. It also can be a detriment at times. Name ultimately is not what creates a successful food and beverage establishment. I think the most important thing is a good operator.”

Lazes says other restaurants have volunteered to step into the Big Beat breach. 

The final dispute

Barnett, 71, has been largely silent, offering up a few “what happened” answers through his attorney, Larry Friedman.

Friedman said ARK allotted Big Beat 1,500 designated parking spaces, but then gave 500 to another tenant.

Big Beat’s venues — Texas Jam House & Marketplace, Martini Ranch, Texas C-Bar, Bar Manzanilla, and Highway 61 South — sat alongside a plaza with the Texas Lottery as the named sponsor.

Big Beat and ARK disagreed on whether the plaza, described in a news release as being 50,000 square feet, was actually half that size.

And Barnett wanted the plaza covered to mitigate the risk of weather-related cancellations, Friedman said.

“All those metrics were used in determining how you get people there,” Friedman said. Big Beat Dallas “didn’t get what they wanted, they couldn’t attract the patronage they wanted to have. They didn’t have the room, they didn’t have the parking, they didn’t have the plaza.

“From Big Beat Dallas’ standpoint, that’s a constructive eviction,” Friedman said, “and the landlord breached the contract.”

Lazes said each of Barnett’s assertions was “absolutely not” true.

“Completely inaccurate,” Lazes said. “We are one of the most responsive landlords you’ll ever meet. I answer everybody’s calls. Anybody who has concerns, not just our tenants, everybody, we try our best to respond and address them.”

Technically, ARK’s contract is with the Seattle-based Restaurants Unlimited, a seasoned restaurant operator that had its own deal with Barnett for the Big Beat venues.

“We are currently reviewing the situation with all parties involved,” Restaurants Unlimited said in a statement.

“While there isn’t a resolution at this time, we feel optimistic about this project, and will share more details as they become available.”

Observers have used words like “bewildering,” to describe a derailment coming so soon after the train left the station.

John Hamburger publishes the Restaurant Finance Monitor and has been writing about restaurants since 1989.

He said he can’t recall another instance of a veteran restaurant operator closing down a major venue two months after opening.

“Most operators start with a cushion of six months to a year,” he said.

He noted that the North Texas restaurant market has become “much more competitive,” since Barnett opened Billy Bob’s in 1981, which could have impacted the venue’s fate.

He added, “this sounds like a mess.”

Huge honky-tonk

Messy is also how things ended up with Barnett’s involvement with Billy Bob’s Texas in Fort Worth, the socalled largest honky-tonk in the world.

Done in during the late 1980s by cost overruns at the bar, depressed land prices, and mounting debts made worse by a real estate crisis, Barnett watched as the bar and several other holdings collectively sold at auction for $8.2 million in 1988. Barnett went through a bankruptcy that listed 1,200 creditors.

Since then his track record has been described as “mixed,” though he also launched the highly successful Cat’s Meow on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

In closing up shop this time, Barnett walked away from a project he’s been associated with since its earliest days.

In 2008, the city partnered with Las Colinas Group, which was partly owned by Barnett’s sister, to build a $250 million concert hall and dining complex in Las Colinas.


Had the center been completed, Barnett would have helped run it.

“It’s obvious when you spend time around him that there’s a wealth of knowledge and experience in him,” said Herbert Gears, Irving’s former mayor, as plans for the project were taking shape.

Neither the company nor the city could secure enough money to break ground on the center, and Irving pulled out of the deal. Friedman represented Las Colinas Group when it sued the city for breach of contract.

Meanwhile, Las Colinas Group was accused of mismanaging public funds, including paying $26,000 in “consulting fees” to Barnett’s chauffeur, according to a 2013 report by The Dallas Morning News.

As part of the deal to build Toyota Music Factory, ARK Group stepped in and agreed to settle the suit. ARK was expected to pay Las Colinas Group and Barnett $4 million to settle, as well as offer Barnett leases to operate venues in the development.

With the ugliness of the initial lawsuit in the past, plans for the entertainment district moved forward in 2013, with music as a key theme throughout the project. The Big Beat spots aimed to bring Deep Ellum’s live music culture to the suburbs for Irving residents and travelers to DFW International Airport to enjoy.

Eventually, the project attracted the attention of the Texas Lottery Commission.

The Texas lottery operator agreed to pay more than $5 million over 10 years to be the named sponsor of the plaza outside of Barnett’s eateries.

“Over the months that led up to us determining that this would be a good investment for some of our advertising and promotion dollars, I made trips up to the Music Factory as it was being constructed,” said Gary Grief, executive director of the commission. “I met with Billy Bob on occasion.

I was able to understand the depth and the breadth of the investment that he and his company were making into the restaurants and the music piece and I came away very impressed.

“You know Billy Bob has a long track record here in our state,” Grief added. “He’s a very iconic and colorful person who’s been involved in many successful business ventures so we had tremendous confidence going into this. When this [departure] came up yes, obviously we were very concerned and we remain concerned.”

Barnett was responsible for programming not only on his stages but also on the lottery plaza stage. Immediately after Barnett’s departure, the plaza was empty, except for a few security guards, and the stage was dark. Lazes said that should change soon.

“Music is a big component to what we’ve always done,” Barnett had said during a hard hat tour in January.

There were more than 60 shows on the calendar from May 29 through October, said David Pippin, former talent director for Big Beat Dallas. He said he planned to cancel the bulk of the local acts.

“The national acts that we have coming through September are going to have to be addressed,” he said.

That love of music may have contributed to lopsided costs, said Lazes.

“It’s unfortunate, but it’s not a reasonable position to take to try to blame the landlord when that’s absolutely not the case here,” he said.

“$10,000 and $15,000 bands were playing and there was nobody there. You can hardly say that was a parking issue.”

Taxpayer money Irving issued nearly $40 million in bonds to jumpstart construction and agreed to pay ARK a rebate of up to $44 million once certain completion milestones are verified.

But city officials stressed that operating funds from the center are not being used to pay either sum. The bonds will be repaid via the hotel occupancy tax and the rebate would come from revenue earned from increased property taxes near the center, according to Michael Morrison, deputy city manager.

Is the city concerned about Barnett’s leaving? “I’m not going to characterize how we feel about it,” said Morrison. “Our interest is in the deal that we have put together.

This is a business operation.”

Has the city been in contact with its former partner? “We do not have a business relationship with Mr. Barnett,” Morrison said.

“We have a tenant that is apparently leaving,” Morrison added. “That’s the nature of a mixed-use development.

You’re going to have tenants come, and you’re going to have tenants go.”

Where Barnett will go next is still a mystery.

A former Big Beat official said Barnett and his team put up to $30 million in opening the venues.

Barnett owns the intellectual property and trademarks, as well as the furniture, fixtures and equipment in the spaces, Friedman said, “so you can expect him to rise again either there or elsewhere.”

Indeed there was some speculation, based on the fact that there was still beer in the coolers and mosaic patterned pillows on the seats, that Barnett might be back.

Lazes said his company is moving forward under the assumption that that’s not the case.

“Billy Bob is a legend,” Friedman said. “He’s already made his name and made his fame. This is more a reflection on the construction and logistics of the Music Factory itself.”

krobinson@dallasnews.com cricciardi@dallasnews.com

Twitter: @krobijake, @tineywristwatch