{"id":591085,"date":"2026-06-04T15:03:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T15:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/591085\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T15:03:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T15:03:16","slug":"the-receipts-what-moving-the-mavs-and-stars-costs-dallas-bars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/591085\/","title":{"rendered":"The Receipts: What moving the Mavs and Stars costs Dallas bars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"The
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tA future without Dallas Stars playoff hockey in downtown is downright depressing. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Photo by Lauren Drewes Daniels<\/p>\n

Within a 24-hour span, Dallas sports fans felt the ground shift twice. The Stars announced their departure from the American Airlines Center (AAC) to Plano\u2019s Willow Bend<\/a> just one day after the Mavs said they\u2019re headed to the former Valley View Mall<\/a> site. It was another blow in a long line of local sports gut-punches.<\/p>\n

For many fans, going to a game at the AAC was a night out: dinner and drinks before or after a game in Victory Park. There are dozens of restaurants all within walking distance. One of my best nights ever was watching a Stars game at the AAC, then walking to Harwood Arms to watch the end of a Mavs playoff game (Luka hit that drop-back three-pointer and the place went wild). Peak Dallas sports day. <\/p>\n

Don\u2019t stop believing<\/p>\n

Most of the businesses around the AAC didn\u2019t want to talk about the move. We get it. Too soon. Taryn Anderson is a co-owner of Billy Can Can, a great steakhouse in Victory Park, and she\u2019s optimistic, citing \u201cY\u2019all Street\u201d and 7,000 workers Goldman Sachs will bring to the area (they probably eat a lot of steak). She still believes in the AAC.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Food Alerts newsletter to get the latest stories delivered to your inbox<\/p>\n

THANK YOU!<\/p>\n

You’re all set.<\/p>\n

CLOSE\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cDave Ireland [vice president of marketing and event programming at the AAC] and his team have done a tremendous job diversifying the event calendar \u2014 concerts, shows, programming that bring people to Victory Park regardless of who\u2019s playing,\u201d she says, adding that the Dallas Wings are committed to playing there. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor our foodie guests who\u2019ve avoided us on heavy game nights, the teams moving is actually good news. The parking and traffic concerns that kept some people away won\u2019t be a factor,\u201d she says. Billy Can Can has that going for it \u2014 it is a legitimate dining destination in its own right. <\/p>\n

Checking the receipts<\/p>\n

For numbers, we can look at liquor receipts<\/a> (specifically, the Mixed Beverage Gross Receipts as reported by the Texas Comptroller\u2019s Office) for bars and restaurants surrounding the AAC by ZIP code. The state collects and publishes liquor sales each month, offering a little insight into the potential impact of the teams\u2019 departure.<\/p>\n

Both the Stars and Mavs roll through the AAC regularly in November through March, when both seasons are in full swing. Neither team plays during June, July and August, the offseason, if you will. So, let\u2019s compare the AAC\u2019s two \u201cseasons.\u201d <\/p>\n

75219: Uptown, Victory Plaza <\/p>\n

Trying to pick each bar and restaurant would be tedious and leave a lot of room for error. Plus, it\u2019s not a stretch to say that many of the areas around the AAC benefit from people eating and drinking before a game. The AAC and Victory Park sit on a sliver of 75219, a ZIP code that also includes a large part of Uptown. For these numbers, we need to subtract the alcohol sales at the AAC \u2014\u00a0we did all the math.<\/p>\n

For the past season, 75219 (minus the AAC) pulled in an average of $6.7 million in liquor sales per month from November to March. <\/p>\n

During the AAC\u2019s offseason (June-August), 75219 averaged $5.6 million per month.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a 16.3% decrease in the offseason. <\/p>\n

75201: Harwood District<\/p>\n

Another ZIP code, 75201, skirts the AAC and includes all of the Harwood District, which is rife with bars like Happiest Hour and Harwood Arms.<\/p>\n

When both teams are playing, 75201 averages $15.6 million a month. When neither team is playing, the average falls to $13.2 million per month, a 15.4% drop in the offseason. <\/p>\n

75202: The West End<\/p>\n

The West End sees some uptick in business on game days \u2014 folks who ride DART stop there for dinner. The historical district saw a 17.4% drop in average monthly sales when the teams weren\u2019t playing ($4 million versus $3.3 million). <\/p>\n

Collectively, across all ZIP codes, there\u2019s a 16% average drop during the off months. <\/p>\n

Is that just seasonal, though? <\/p>\n

We often hear that business at bars and restaurants is down in the summer. \u201cIt\u2019s too hot.\u201d So, we plucked data for the Star District in Frisco (ZIP code 75034), another entertainment area with many bars and restaurants. Yes, they, too, see a drop in the summer months, but their slump averages 6.5%. Not 16%. <\/p>\n

Is an almost 10% drop \u2014 at best (concerts could move too) \u2014 over most of the year enough to kill an entertainment district? Will Y\u2019all Street buoy it? What is Y\u2019all Street? Why do bad things keep happening to Dallas sports fans? Should we hire a witch off Etsy to un-vex this space? Is that what GoFundMe is for (vexes cost a LOT)? Or do we call our senator? Let\u2019s go with witches. <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hope, by some miracle, both teams just decide to stay. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A future without Dallas Stars playoff hockey in downtown is downright depressing. Photo by Lauren Drewes Daniels Within…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5117],"tags":[196,5047,147,5278,1014,5,4,197],"class_list":["post-591085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas-stars","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-dallas-stars","tag-dallasstars","tag-economy","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-stars"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116692451717108977","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}