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Inside the Stoneleigh P, 51 years old in Dallas but new to Lemmon Avenue
Thanks to playoff games, the Stoneleigh P is already attracting a younger, sports-loving customer.
11:55 AM on Jun 3, 2024
If the Stoneleigh P in Dallas can survive a fire, as it did in 1980, it can survive a relocation.
Following 51 years slinging beers and burgers on Dallas’ Maple Avenue, father-daughter owners Laura Garrison and Tom Garrison moved the P and reopened on Lemmon Avenue in Dallas on May 1, 2024.
“We’re so happy to be here,” Laura Garrison over lunch in the new restaurant. That’s a good attitude, since it was never the plan to leave their home of a half-century that’s across the street from the 100-year-old Stoneleigh hotel. When Tom Garrison opened the Stoneleigh P in 1973, he had hardly any money and only a moderate idea of how to run a bar. A little hospitality went a long way in this “fringe” neighborhood we now called Uptown Dallas. His hole in the wall became a hangout for actors Luke and Owen Wilson, politicians Kinky Friedman and Jimmy Carter, plus journalists, millionaires and anyone in between.
When the lease was up last year, the Garrisons weren’t able to strike a new deal. Landlord Bob Woody, who owns bars and restaurants in Austin, has new plans for the old Stoneleigh P property, and it became clear the Garrisons would need to move on.
They closed the P for a swift 18 days in April 2024 — four days too long, if you ask Laura, but six months faster than most other bar owners in Dallas could probably have managed.
The new place has a lot of Stoneleigh P memorabilia. For starters, the red neon “Stoneleigh P” sign that hung over the door is installed in the same spot at the new place. The doors open into a dated lobby covered in ... rocks? ... that Tom insisted stay put. It’s the Stoneleigh entrance, the 82-year-old told his daughter. You can hear him saying it.
The new restaurant has a museum-like quality, but lived in. Take a stroll around and there’s that funny black-and-white photo of the staff, wearing cowboy garb for no good reason, from a few decades ago. A wall of news articles explains the bar’s long history. The old pharmacy cabinets are here.
Everything from the old restaurant needed a deep clean. “We had two leaf blowers going,” Laura said, describing the serious dust-up as they moved. “It was gnarly.”
The menu is exactly the same. And I don’t mean the the plates coming out of the kitchen look the same and are made by the same cooks, although those things are also true. I mean the menus, yellowing and encased in a see-through sleeve, are the same.
Regulars’ favorites — the enchiladas, the burger and the chicken sandwich, three classics — are still here. Those recipes might not have been altered since Laura was a child, she muses. She’s 29 now.
“It’s already such a change,” she said of the new address, “so we tried not to change too much else.”
Tom, a fixture at the old bar, is getting used to the new place. “He doesn’t know where to stand yet,” his daughter said. It’s a sweet conundrum, as he stood behind the same bar, in the same place, for 51 years.
This new spot on Lemmon Avenue has been many things, including an Eggsellent Cafe and a “male version of Hooters” called Tallywackers, where topless guys wearing skimpy shorts served bar food. If the Stoneleigh had to move, at least it was to an address with some character.
They’re starting to serve breakfast from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day, in addition to the regular Stoneleigh P menu, because customers have asked for it.
The bar here is much bigger than the former P. It juts out into the center of the dining room and has room for more than twice as many people.
And while the regulars have certainly found their way back, the new Stoneleigh P has the opportunity to feel like more of a sports bar than ever before. Its big TVs became a magnet for neighbors looking for a new spot to watch the Dallas Stars and Dallas Mavericks playoff games in the past few weeks.
With Laura in charge, her dad’s bar has the same counter-culture attitude of yesteryear, but in a new neighborhood. And with a little less dust.
The Stoneleigh P is at 4218 Lemmon Ave., Dallas. Open seven days a week, 11 a.m. to 2 a.m
