Another Oak Cliff Eatery Bites the Dust
The sight has become all too familiar in recent months. One day you are sitting down for a meal with family. The next day you may be ordering drive thru. Maybe you are shopping at a local grocery store. Drive by a day later and the place is boarded up and out of business.
Yesterday I was driving up Highway 67 North, and as I exited Kiest and looked to my right, I noticed that the Grandy's at 67 and Polk had been boarded up. I could have sworn I was there like 3 weeks ago getting a Chicken Fried Chicken meal. There was a time that I would have marked the closing with little more than a passing note, but now I look at the building and see more erosion of the city's tax base, namely Southern Dallas. As the gap between tax revenue in Northern and Southern Dallas continues to widen, these store closings only exacerbates the issue.
Grandy's joins Chili’s at Camp Wisdom and 67, and Kroger on Westmoreland near Illinois, as retailers that have shut down since I moved to Dallas last year. Pretty soon, I'm sure you will be able to add Chili's to the used to be list of buildings on Camp Wisdom: "That used to be a Black Eyed Pea", "That used to be an IHOP", "That used to be a Chili's." Not to mention the impending day when we will say "That used to be a mall."
Everyone knows that much of the restaurant business in Southern Dallas has flowed to Cedar Hill, but what is the deal with these recent closures? Grandy's had been in that spot for a while. It was by no means the newest location in town, and driving through the parking lot was an adventure. I'm not exactly sure what factors are at work, but we the people are going to have to get it figured out as our tax dollars are flying North, South, and West.
In subsequent blogs, I'll give my thoughts on Southwest Center Mall, Wynnewood Village, and revisit the Pinnacle Park experiment; but each one of these closings is like water leaking through the crack in the dike. Individually it's nothing more than someone's corporate business decision, but there is an aggregate effect that must be explored.
What can't be lost is the fact that restaurants, theatres, and retail shops close down in every corner of the city, not to mention downtown (see West End Cinema, Marketplace, and Planet Hollywood). However, it takes longer for the buildings in the south to be converted to other uses, and even then the businesses are not of the same ilk as the establishments that left.
In the short term, one question remains: Where the rolls at???
