Today Federales, a restaurant and bar originally from Chicago, announced it's closing its Deep Ellum location about two years after that visit.
"It’s with bittersweet emotions that we announce that Federales will be closing its doors. After two wonderful years, we have made the difficult decision to cease our operations effective immediately.
We are immensely grateful for the support we have received from our guests, our dedicated staff, and the Deep Ellum community. Thank you for being a part of our journey."
Comments for the post are turned off, which might be one of their smartest moves since coming to Dallas. Federales has other restaurants in Denver and Chicago. This closure in the heart of Deep Ellum in a massive 14,000-square-foot space will leave a big hole in the neighborhood.
Deep Ellum has continued to define itself over the past few years. Visitors to the historic neighborhood, which has often been called the soul of the city, have ebbed and flowed over the decades. We've studied the live music scene and restaurants, both of which have struggled to thrive in the area. Some point to crime and road closures set up by the Dallas Police Department.
In a 2023 article celebrating Deep Ellum's 150th anniversary, Three Links owner Scott Beggs lamented an anti-crime plan that felt more like an anti-business plan. "All of their attention was focused on the businesses," Beggs said at the time. "They shut down the streets and strangled our businesses. Crime didn't stop. It just slowed down our business."
Pete Zotos at St. Pete's Dancing Marlin agrees that the plans to divert traffic have hurt business.
Other businesses just outside of Deep Ellum, like Bottled Blonde on Good Latimer, have pulled people from the area, while choking traffic into the neighborhood.
"All I can say is 14,000 square feet on Commerce Street in Deep Ellum is a hard gig," Zotos says, who has run his restaurant, which is a quarter of that space, for 29 years. "Every time I drove by it I thought that's four times the electric bill, four times the water bill, four times the people. You gotta be busy every night of the week."
Zotos says the summer is always hard in Deep Ellum, but mentioned that when Tripping Daisy recently played St. Pete's had one of its best nights in a long time, "The people are out there, you just got to get them here."
We'll see if the next tenants of the space can do any better.
