A Short History In the Making . . .

Who would have thought you'd find an ex Apache Bell from Tyler Texas running a world famous beer joint in Dallas?

Lois McKinzie Adair, owner of Adair's Saloon began her life in Tyler and moved to Dallas in the late 1950's. She met and married R.L. Adair and the rest is history. Adair's, as it is known around Texas, has had a loyal following since it's beginning. The beer joint was opened by S.L. and Ann Adair in February 1963 on Cedar Springs. Their clientele consisted mostly of college students from nearby schools, among them SMU, TCU, NTSU and others. The now famous burgers got started because Ann would make the 1/2 lb. cheeseburgers to satisfy S.L.'s large appetite. The kids decided the burgers looked good and began to request them. Another Adair's trademark, the graffiti on the walls, began as kids would leave their "mark".

Lois and R.L. worked for Ann and S.L. from January 1, 1967 until December 31, 1969. In 1977 they bought the business when Ann and S.L. retired. When S.L. decided to sell the building in August of 1982, Lois and R.L. had a farewell party at the Cedar Springs location and reopened Adair's on Commerce Street in January of 1983. At the grand opening party, Lois handed out black markers and the old traditions began anew. Not much has changed since the early days. The attitude around Adair's has always been, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Since R.L.'s death in 1987, Lois has been alone in managing the business. She has adopted a more progressive attitude and has made some changes which have enhanced the Adair's tradition. The classics are still in place on the jukebox, along with some carefully selected additions. Adair's has become home to live music and can boast that musicians such as Jack Ingram, Deryl Dodd and members of The Dixie Chicks have graced their stage. Hit song writer Tony Lane was once an Adair's regular performer. A few artists have come to record LIVE CDs and a couple of groups have had their cover photography done at Adair's. Adair's has been shown in print ads in several magazines and has been the setting for everything from beer commercials to a Don Henley music video. While there have been imitators, not one of them has been able to duplicate the success of the original. Maybe there's something to R.L.'s saying, "Dance with the one who brung ya or no damn dancin'."

    I love a good joint   By "Joint" I mean a drinking - and eating - establishment where whatever else  is for sale. The main merchandise is beer, And where the bartender is the owner or his son or a guy who worked there so long that it's impossible to imagine the place without him. And the waitress callas all customers of both sexes either "Hon" or "Darlin." Pool and shuffleboard are desirable options. But not essential. Absolutely essential, however, is a good jukebox loaded with genuine country music.

  Adair's Saloon Is Such A Place

    Burger's, Beer, And Patsy Cline

    One neon sign in front says it's Adair's Saloon. Another says it's Adair's Bar & Grill. The T-shirt on the waitress says it's Adair's Beer Joint. The Regulars just call it Adair's, and if you're a Dallas-dweller of certain type. Adair's is heaven.

    Looking at some of the customers at lunchtime, you know what has happened. These guys have walked out of some glass office tower, out of some meeting with a boss or banker, the heat on the street has hit them like a ton of lighted charcoal, their suit coats have begun to fit like a straitjackets, and they can't stand the thought of one more person telling them to have a nice day.

    And somebody has said. " Hey, this an Adair's kind of day!" And they've crawled into a car an driven over to that long, narrow shady room at 2624 Commerce Street in Deep Ellum. They've probably told themselves that they're going to have a quick burger and get back to the office, but they've probably lied.

    Ordering lunch is easy at Adair's. You get a hamburger, or you get a cheeseburger. Lettuce, tomato, pickle, and onion. Choice of mustard, catsup, or mayonnaise. The bread is a hamburger bun just like the ones your mother used to buy at the grocery store. The meat greasy and weighs half a pound. The cheese on the cheeseburger is American. The whole thing is topped with a jalapeno and held together with a toothpick and served in a plastic basket.

    It's the kind of burger you used to buy a long time ago in places called Joe's and Louie's and Poncho's in person. Joe's or Louie's or Poncho's might have offered you a few alternatives - ham - and - cheese, say, or eggs salad - but Adair's doesn't. If you don't want a burger, you don't eat at Adair's.

    On the side, you can get plain potato chips or barbecue potato chips or potato chips with those little grooves in them to Fritos. The side dishes cost extra and come in sacks. To drink, there are your basic American soft drinks and your basic American beers, served with the cans still on them. You can get a drink of the hard stuff, too. if you don't order anything fancy.

    For those who liked Joe's or Louie's or Poncho's, Adair's provides the best lunch available in the vicinity of downtown Dallas. But the best thing about Adair's isn't lunch. It's the place you get to eat it in.

    If you grew up in Fort Stockton or Round Rock or Durant or Odessa or some other place that had a real beer joint and you sometimes get homesick, entering Adair's will bring a tear to your eye. The long room is dark and cool, lighted only by the sun through the front plate-glass window and half a dozen neon beer signs on the walls and cooled by a big air conditioner that hangs from the ceiling and by ceiling fans.

    Also on the ceiling are hundreds of gimme caps that somebody nailed up there and hundreds of paper napkins that customers have wadded up , soaked in beer, and txbogn up there to stick during the bar's year's on Commerce Stbuet,0where it moved after twenty years on Cedar Springs Road.

    The walls adorned with Texas, and American flags and portraits of Bob Wills, John Wayne, and Hondo Crouch, also are full of words. Some are rules and information posted by Adair's management.

            "You Dance With Who Brung You Or No Damn Dancing."

                                    Dress Code Enforced: Clean Cloths.

                                    Yes! We Serve Crabs, Have A Seat.

                                                Bob Wills Lives.

      Public Notice: As A Public Service Announcement, This Establishment Will Notify The Next Of Kin Of Any Person Who Dares Drop A Puck On This Damn New Table.

    This reference is to the shuffleboard table, which stands along the wall between the pool tables at the front of the room and the pinball machines farther back, near the patched, vinyl covered booths and wobbly tables.

    There are other signs that used to stand beside Texas highways, identifying or directing motorist to Hondo Creek, Tarpley, Bandera, Orangefield, and of course, Camp Adair. But most of the words on the walls were written by customers.

    The Adair's graffiti collection must be the largest in Dallas, and it covers the entire spectrum of the graffitist's art: classic restroom poetry, comments on Texas foreign policy (The Border Patrol is on the wrong river), and bits of personal philosophy ( As I look back the only thing I would of saved for my old age is the years between twenty and thirty). Some very tall customers, including the Secret Service agents who guarded Vice President George Bush during the Republican National Convention in 1984, wrote their remarks on the ceiling.

    But the soul of Adair's, the thing that makes Adair's Adair's, is the music. " We have some who come in for lunch and stay all afternoon listening to the jukebox," says Charline Johnston, who hefts the burgers from the cook's window to the tables.

    The Adair's jukebox is simply the best country jukebox in Dallas, probably the best in Texas. So in the every shadows of downtowns towers, within earshot of Central Expressway's roar, the good old grown-up country boys take off their suit coats, loosen their neckties, nurse a cool one and sing along with Hank Williams on "Cold, Cold Heart," Hank Thompson on "The Wild Side of Life," Bob Wills on " Faded Love," Webb Pierce on "There Stands the Glass, " Patsy Cline on " I Fall to Pieces," Ernest Tubb on " Walking the Floor Over You." Some even try to imitate Jimmie Rodgers blue yodel on " Muleskinner Blues," accompanied by the click of pool balls, the ping of pinball, and many fractures of the No Profanity rule.

    Eyes glaze and minds slide easily into memories of two stepping thigh to thigh with some long-ago sweetie in some faraway high school gym, of sweaty adolescent grappling in the backseat of  '53 Fords under the bright Southwestern moon, of the first beer drunk - illegally probably - in a joint much like this.

    In Adair's on such a hot afternoon, it's hard to remember you're really a lawyer or judge or cop or a computer programmer or a truck driver or an auto parts salesman who still has work to do. It's even harder to care.

                                                                                                                                                {July 1985}