In a basement on Main Street in downtown Dallas, Shyboy is thrumming with activity. Some nights, there’s a line 200 deep as music fans wait to see inside Dallas’ hottest new bar for dancing and drinking. Other nights, a few dozen people might sit quietly inside a velvet-padded room for an intimate vinyl session.
“There’s no place like it in Dallas, for sure,” said Jonathan Merla, the brainchild behind Shyboy.
He spent two years buying obscure vinyl from collectors all over the world. He modeled Shyboy after jazz kissas in Japan, which are music cafes known for their high-quality sound systems.
Shyboy’s tech setup cost about $500,000, and two monolithic OJAS x NNNN speakers are the centerpiece of the pulsing room. They stand taller than the tallest person in the basement and create a “temple for sound,” Merla said. Anyone can walk right up to them — if someone isn’t in the way, dancing.
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In another room, a turntable sits encased in glass, as if it were the most important piece in a living museum.
A smaller room inside Shyboy, the Blue Room, is deliberately different from the main room, encased in concrete. The Blue Room has floor-to-ceiling padding.
Dan Padgett
Lights and curved walls throughout make you feel like you’re inside a lava lamp with great acoustics — like the fantastical fever dream of a group of art-obsessed music lovers. The Dallas Morning News called Shyboy one of the most exciting new bars to open in Dallas this year because it’s Dallas’ first hi-fi, or high-fidelity, listening lounge.
“We needed to be crazy and brave enough to do this,” said Jeny Bania, chief marketing officer.
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Shyboy has some rare vinyl on display. The hi-fi listening lounge opened in downtown Dallas March 4, 2026.
James Kung
And who could pay for such a showpiece — a pricey playroom for audiophiles and their friends? Dallas oil billionaire Tim Headington had a short conversation with Merla, his vice president of marketing, which was the catalyst for a two-year deep dive into hi-fi culture. This “creative, engaging and expressive“ place aligned with Headington’s mission as one of the most prolific supporters of downtown Dallas. Headington is the proprietor of the Joule hotel, financier of the public art piece The Eye, and owner of boutiques Forty Five Ten and Traffic LA and several restaurants.
Shyboy resides underneath an apartment building Headington bought, the Drakestone. It’s formerly the Davis Building, which Headington renovated in 2017 and received a Preservation Dallas award for in 2024.
Down the dramatic flight of stairs, the basement walls are curved to help with sound quality. Don’t get Merla started on how difficult that was: He spent weeks down here as each piece of gypsum was put in place. Now that Shyboy is open, he’ll spend all night there listening to music, then return at 7 a.m. to recalibrate the sound system.
‘Remove you from the distractions’
A former jazz musician, Merla spent more than a decade traveling the world, including to Japan. He believes the post-COVID music lover wants a “listening-centered” experience that is uncommon in Dallas.
Jonathan Merla is pictured inside the vault before Shyboy’s bar, velvet walls and sound system were installed in the downtown Dallas basement space.
James Kung
Listeners might hear Japanese jazz, Brazilian bossa nova and Detroit techno in the same evening. And also Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.”
Merla hopes Shyboy will be so stimulating that bargoers put down their phones and just exist: dancing, drinking, listening. “It takes these types of environments to center you — to remove you from the distractions of the world,” he said.
(But maybe pull out your phone to get a photo of the historic bank vault door — an art piece unto itself that weighs something like 4 tons.)
Drinks here cost $13, and many are made quickly from a Japanese highball machine. The idea is that drinkers can grab a beverage and get back to the party. Merla doesn’t seem to care if Shyboy’s customers are as obsessed with sound quality as he is. He just thinks Dallas needs one of these.
“Right now is the right time,” he said.
Shyboy is at 1313 Main St., Dallas. Open Wednesdays through Sundays, evenings only.