![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774460168_194_WESRFNJONZCZDPYZZAHCM6H2U4.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
With its hand-painted signs hawking \u201cBAR-B-Q\u201d and \u201cBEST BURGERS\u201d and \u201cCHICKEN FR. ST.,\u201d its beat-up tin awning, a rickety red neon sign barely blinking \u201cBEER,\u201d Hickory House Bar-B-Q & Grill looks like it\u2019s always been there. Because it has. Since the Truman presidency<\/a>, anyway, along the boulevard formerly known as Industrial in the shadow of the Houston Street Viaduct. In this town, that\u2019s forever and an extra afternoon.<\/p>\n There\u2019s some debate about its opening date: The sign out front says \u201cSince 1952,\u201d but its longtime owner told me Tuesday he discovered a few years ago that the joint opened in 1950. The first time the words \u201cHickory House\u201d appeared in a local newspaper was August 1949, in a full-page Dallas Times Herald ad listing new landowners in the old Trinity Industrial District located \u201cUnder the Skyline of Dallas.\u201d <\/p>\n There\u2019s now a likely last time, too: May 30, 2026. That\u2019s how long Nick Spyropoulos has to move out and close up, courtesy of a landlord who found a new tenant willing to pay high rent for an old building on a beat-up stretch of street at last getting its long-promised, high-priced makeover. <\/p>\n Almost every table was filled a little before noon Tuesday \u2013 most with regulars staring down plate-sized burgers, some with local tourists who\u2019d come to say their farewells over a chicken fried steak with sides.<\/p>\n Nick Spyropoulos is the latest in a long line of Hickory House owners dating back to its opening on Industrial Boulevard in 1950. He will also be the last.<\/p>\n Robert Wilonsky<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not a place for the young generation,\u201d the 65-year-old Spyropoulos said. \u201cIt\u2019s older people. The young people eat downtown.\u201d<\/p>\n Opinion<\/p>\n By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThere aren\u2019t many of these places left,\u201d Dan Miller said as he waited to pay his check. The 71-year-old Oak Cliff native hadn\u2019t been here in years. But he saw on the TV last week<\/a> that the Hickory House is closing soon, so he brought his wife, a Louisiana native who\u2019d never been, to pay their respects.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s sad these places are going,\u201d Miller said.<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t have to be this way. Spyropoulos told me Tuesday he had a buyer lined up to take over Hickory House for $100,000. The would-be owner, a restaurant regular, had just one caveat: Spyropoulos would remain in place as the face of the institution of which he\u2019d been the longtime caretaker.<\/p>\n Spyropoulos told me he broke the news to his landlord, Thansai Mantas, who said a transfer of ownership was a no-go. Mantas told Spyropoulos he\u2019d lined up another tenant, a Spanish-language nightclub, whose owners were willing to pay about triple the current rent of $3,500 a month. The new tenants brought tape measures on Monday, Spyropoulos said, so they could measure the place for a refit \u2013 \u201cif they don\u2019t tear it down,\u201d he said in the Greek accent he hasn\u2019t shaken 56 years after his parents moved their four sons to Dallas.<\/p>\n He grinned. \u201cMoney talks.\u201d He shrugged.<\/p>\n Crews were busy on Tuesday building palapas for the new club scheduled to take over the Hickory House location sometime this summer, before the World Cup kicks off.<\/p>\n Robert Wilonsky<\/p>\n I left messages for Mantas, who made millions<\/a> when he sold<\/a> Silver City Cabaret on N. Stemmons Freeway<\/a> to a publicly traded Houston strip-club conglomerate<\/a> in 2012. But construction has already begun outside Hickory House: On Tuesday, three guys were trimming palm fronds to lay atop newly built palapas tucked between the Mixmaster and the Houston Street Viaduct. <\/p>\n Spyropoulos said the next owners want to get the place ready by July 1. \u201cFor World Cup,\u201d he said. He laughed.<\/p>\n None of this is terribly surprising. In 1996, city planners ignored Industrial altogether, with one former official telling this newspaper that \u201cit has a lot of character to it,\u201d and let\u2019s just leave it at that. Seven years later came the Trinity River Corridor Project\u2019s Balanced Vision Plan, which, in addition to nearly drowning a toll road between the levees, promised to transform the eventually renamed Riverfront into a \u201ctransition to the downtown street system<\/a>.\u201d City Hall committed more than $60 million<\/a> to a project promised in 2010<\/a> but only recently underway<\/a>.<\/p>\n Work has finally begun on the $60+ million remake of Riverfront Boulevard all the way to the front door of the Longhorn Ballroom.<\/p>\n Robert Wilonsky<\/p>\n Riverfront or Industrial or whatever you want to call it was forever just a stretch of liquor stores, bail bonds dispensaries, dive bars and juke joints, including Rusty Montgomery\u2019s Round-Up Club, which opened downtown in 1928 and moved to Industrial in 1965 to be next to the Hickory House. Now, from the Able Pump Station and Fuel City all the way down to the Longhorn Ballroom on Corinth Street, Riverfront is an obstacle course of barricades and rubble, with local investors and out-of-town LLCs and developer Jack Matthews<\/a> owning property on both sides of the torn-up street.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 10 years, all of this will be unrecognizable,\u201d Spyropoulos said as he looked out the window. \u201cAll this construction, these new sidewalks, they think will make it look like the Riverwalk in San Antonio.\u201d He shook his head. \u201cI was going to do a lot of improvements before all this. And it\u2019s hard for me to walk away. But I don\u2019t have a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n I expect most readers have never been to Hickory House, except maybe on the way to the Longhorn or, once upon a time, the Sportatorium. It always looked like a set made for the movies, which might be why it was a regular on the short-lived Bradley Whitford-Colin Hanks series The Good Guys<\/a> and the narco-empire series Queen of the South, whose location scouts and publicists treated Hickory House like the landmark it should have been \u2013 and would have been in any other city that doesn\u2019t treat its lifers like afterthoughts.<\/p>\n Walking into the Hickory House in 2026 probably isn’t too different from walking into the Hickory House when it opened its doors in 1950.<\/p>\n Robert Wilonsky<\/p>\n For Spyropoulos, Hickory House was initially just a good, steady job handed to him by his brother Pete, who bought the barbecue joint 20 years ago, then headed to California and tossed Nick the keys. Nick\u2019s had countless jobs since coming to Dallas, from throwing the Times Herald to installing floor tile to owning Collin County convenience stores. But this is the one that stuck. <\/p>\n![\"Nick](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/WGNB2TYFSFD23HK6VYGXCKMERM.JPG\")
<\/p>\n![\"Crews](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/W7C6RX77PVCWRDLHPKYWOZ73OU.JPG\")
<\/p>\n![\"Work](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/SFJPPEGBDFFVRMBDCZZGNTJ5G4.JPG\")
<\/p>\n![\"Walking](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/BNULJ5OJ2BDMHHCRBOOXHEDHPM.JPG\")
<\/p>\n