© 2016 The Texas Lawbook.
By Natalie Posgate
(Sept. 8) – Sometimes, the Dallas community is missing something notable – a district attorney, for example.
Other times, it’s something less significant but just as necessary: say, a comfortable place close to downtown to hang out after work, drink high-end Scotch and order late-night pizza.
A group of Dallas attorneys seeking to fill that void are starting Mac’s Southside together, a new community dive bar in Dallas’ Cedars neighborhood.
Officially open for a week now, the new dive is the brainchild of Hunton & Williams tax attorney Mark Melton and attorney-turned-restaurateur Khanh Nguyen, the owner of late-night pho spot DaLat and its pizza counterpart, ZaLat.
Featuring ample seating options, shuffleboard tables, an adorable mascot, and whiskey paired with bulldog-shaped ice cubes, Mac’s Southside is a place Melton hopes will serve all types in the Cedar’s neighborhood.
“I call it a dive bar-plus,” Melton said. “It has a dive bar feel to it, but with nice wooden features and higher-end scotch. It’s a place where you can be comfortable if you’re a CEO of a corporation, doctor, or lawyer, or if you’re in a band or an artist.”
Nguyen is also opening a brand new ZaLat Pizza restaurant that connects to Mac’s Southside. Patrons of Mac’s Southside will be able to order New York-style pizza from the bar until 2 a.m., or get delivery from the new ZaLat until 4 a.m.
Besides being majority-owned by two lawyers, five of the eight minority investors are also attorneys. They include: Bell, Nunnally & Martin partner Ross Williams; Gruber Elrod Johansen Hail Shank partner Dave Wishnew; Hartline Dacus Barger Dreyer associate Aaron Burke; Alvarez & Marsal senior director James Deets.
Front (from left): Cody Burke, Mac and Ross Williams.
The group of minority investors also includes a few non-lawyers: Wishnew’s brother, Jeff; Burke’s brother, Cody; as well as Charles Glover, who is a senior fellow at Bellwether Education Partners, an education management nonprofit organization.
When Melton approached the other investors about starting Mac’s Southside, Williams said his decision was easy.
“I think every guy at some point says, ‘I want to own a bar with some buddies’” said Williams, who practices complex commercial litigation. “I knew I wanted to do it; it was just a matter of convincing my wife that it was a good idea. Or at least if it was a bad idea, that it would still be a lot of fun.”
The mascot
Perhaps the most prominent figure in this deal is who the bar is named after: Wishnew’s cuddly, under bite-sporting, five-and-a-half-year-old English bulldog, Mac.
“I would have invested what I did ahead of time without looking at anything else,” Wishnew, a commercial litigator, said. “But when I learned they were naming the bar after my dog, I was all in. Mac and I are very excited about building up our bar. Mac’s already the center of attention wherever we go, so this will easily make Mac the most famous dog in Dallas.”
A growing social media sensation, the group built up Mac’s Facebook following before announcing the opening of Mac’s Southside.
“We got some pictures of Mac with local state representative Eric Johnson, and would take Mac to bars and get pictures with pretty girls,” Melton said. “We developed a crazy alcoholic dog persona, and got 1,500 followers in the first five days of starting Mac’s Facebook page.”
Once the deal was ready to go, Mac shifted his posts to the announcement of Mac’s Southside, “promoting it as if it was his own bar,” Melton said.
The group plans to build a dog-friendly patio in the coming months and obtain the proper licensing with the city so that Mac can host other four-legged friends.
The deal
Melton and Nguyen, friends and longtime karaoke partners, decided to open Mac’s Southside after its predecessor, Absinthe Lounge, shut its doors earlier this summer.
Once they decided to take the plunge, the timeline progressed rapidly. After forming their new business entity July 10, the partners closed on the real estate Aug. 1. They made it a goal to redecorate the space and open it by the end of the month – and they actually did.
“Mark has been working 18 to 20-hour days,” Wishnew said. “He would text the group photos of the progress at 3 in the morning. Then I would see him in a suit in the lobby of Fountain Place at 8:30 or 9 a.m.” (Hunton and Gruber Elrod’s offices are both in the same building in downtown Dallas.)
“The work ethic of this guy is beyond [incredible],” Wishnew added. “We ended up opening ahead of schedule and came in under budget.”
Certainly part of that is attributable to the fact that the new business was started up by a group of lawyers with varied practices.
Melton said he and Deets’ transactional background came in handy when setting up the accounting, and working through the tax and corporate structure of the deal. Meanwhile Wishnew, Williams and Burke, the litigators of the group, pointed out potential hurdles or liabilities to avoid.
“People are going to think long and hard before suing us,” Wishnew said.
Melton said going through the process reminded him how heavy the legal need is when starting a business.
“I try to imagine how expensive this would have been from just legal fees if non-lawyers tried to do all of this on their own,” Melton said. “There certainly was a lot of legal work on this deal – licensing, TABC permitting, agreements and whatnot. But being able to execute a deal on the operating level is something I don’t get to do every day. I found it to be a really enjoyable experience.”
But a catalyst for getting the bar up and running within a month was also attributed toward other skillsets the attorneys possessed.
“There are a lot of interesting talents that people have other than their professional talents that you don’t learn about until you open a business,” Williams said. “I learned the Burke brothers are the most aggressive demolition team I’ve ever seen. Mark is a heck of a carpenter, and I never would have known that. But for me, they’re still messing with me on the fact that I put a hole through the wrong wall; one we wanted to keep.”
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