Jeffrey Payne, owner of Dallas Eagle
Dallas Eagle owner Jeffrey Payne announced today (Wednesday, Sept. 30) that he will not be re-opening the bar on Maple Avenue before sometime in December at the earliest.
“We have been closed since March 15. I have wanted nothing more than to reopen since that time; however, during that I time, I continued to believe it was not in the best interest of our staff, patrons and family,” Payne said in a post on social media. “Looking at the data, I still do not feel it is the time to reopen. And will not reconsider it until December.”
Payne acknowledged that he is “well aware” how some others feel about whether the bar should reopen, noting that “many of you have made it quite clear on social media and/or private messages that you disagree with my decision.” Still, he continued, while his customers have a right to their opinion and he respects that, “However,” he continued, “not to be too blunt, I own the bar and the buck stops with me.”
Payne ended his post with a reminder to “stay safe, mask up and take care of yourself and those around you.”
— Tammye Nash
Congratulations to Jeffrey Payne for his principled stand. He is putting health and safety ahead of economic concerns. I understand that many patrons want to be able to resume their “normal” routines, and going out and socializing is high on their list. I am sure that his position is costing him greatly, and that he will continue to pay a price for many months, even after he chooses to reopen. He has taken responsibility for his choice, and his customers should respect that.
“I own the bar and the buck stops with me.” Actually, the buck stops with the governor and you’re not allowed to reopen yet anyway. Just be glad you had customers to begin with and knock off the pretentious attitude.
Actually not true. I could’ve put a food truck out front and reopened. So, the buck did stop with me.
Agreed… this guy is a douche.
Lmao get the hell outta here idiot, you don’t own the bar so you have no sway or say in anything. Jut continue to be jealous that people have successful businesses with dedicated clientele. You’re the one with the pretentious attitude acting like someone caring for his customers is doing something wrong.
Make sure you open the bar the day after the elections to prove your bullshit of masks and extra precautions during this HORRIBLE pandemic. Funny how comments not his article work, but not on the sham article about how there are actually gays that are republican and don’t buy into the sham BS of the Biden campaign…. this website is crap.
Just out of curiosity, why do think the comments on this article don’t work?
Tammye, magically they appeared after you asked me about comments… not sure what happened… Maybe the Dallas Voice clowns can explain why they suppress comments sometimes.
I can absolutely explain. There was no magic to it at all. Because of the vast amount of spam comments that come in daily, Dallas Voice moderates all comments. That means NO comment is allowed until an actual person on our staff — which at this moment consists of 2 people in editorial — personally reads it and approves it. So there was nothing nefarious in how long it took for your comment to show up, just a matter of sometimes it takes a minute for one of the two of us to get to the comments. And if you read over the other comments on our stories, you will see we obviously don’t delete comments from people who call us names.