Description
It takes a little courage to enter Club Schmitz the first time. The seedy-looking dive in Northwest Dallas has been there since 1946, and not much about the place has changed since. But that's what makes Club Schmitz so great. It's an oasis of the past, with its wood-paneled walls and classic Budweiser displays. Describing the bar as vintage would suggest that its look is contrived. But its old, wooden bar stools and billiard table were once purchased new. The prices haven't changed much, either. On a recent visit, the soft-spoken woman working the bar pulled a Coors (Schmitz only serves beer and wine) from the tap into a plastic beer mug. It set us back $1.75. The mustard-heavy, charred burger that came with it didn't cost much more.
Just as the fading "Club Schmitz--Beer, Good Food" sign outside suggests, the inside is a time capsule full of yellowed beer promos, mismatched ceiling tiles, well-worn pool cues and a classic shuffleboard table. Aside from a big-screen TV, a few framed magazine articles, a picture of Dubya and the Golden Tee and Silver Strike video games, there is not much here to indicate that it's no longer the '50s. Even the food prices--$2.75 for a grilled cheese, $2 onion rings, $4 to $5 for burgers--hark back to a different era. The place offers ice and mixers if you want to bring in your own liquor, as it only sells beer.
The place would be an ideal first-date destination. You know you've got a low-maintenance keeper if she or he can enjoy a night of cold beer, greasy food and bar games in a somewhat seedy area near Webb Chapel and Harry Hines. And if the two of you end up starting a family, there's even a high chair waiting for you at Schmitz.
