Which part of the Lakewood Theater is the landmark? The tower and the marquee are part of it. Inside, the City of Dallas protected only the lobby murals and wrote into law that every other interior feature is unprotected. That choice, made in 2016 after a tense year on Abrams Parkway, explains why a 1938 movie house now has bowling lanes where its seats were, and why a taco counter is heading for its lobby.
The news this fall came from both ends of East Dallas in the same week. On October 23, the Granada Theater on Greenville Avenue announced its sale to a spa company. Four days later, The Dallas Morning News reported that Rusty Taco is moving into the Lakewood Theater. Both buildings are keeping their marquees while the businesses inside change. On Greenville, a stage is giving way to saunas. On Abrams, Bowlski's and The Balcony Club stay and a new food counter replaces the old one. In Lakewood, a city ordinance set the terms for that kind of change years ago.
What Ordinance 30192 Protects and What It Leaves Out
The Dallas City Council approved the Lakewood Theater's landmark overlay 15 to 0 on September 14, 2016. The ordinance itself is precise about which parts of the property count.
Part of the property | Status under the ordinance |
|---|---|
The 1938 main building | Protected |
The 1980s addition | Excluded |
The two main facades, from ground to parapet, including the tower and marquee signs | Protected |
Both towers, their historic lighting and signage, the marquee, the box office and the poster cases | Protected |
The lobby mural paintings | Protected |
Every other interior feature and component | Not protected |
The protections are strict. Any replacement lighting on the towers has to closely match the look of the historic neon. The murals must stay in place. They can be covered, but the covering may not touch them, attach to them or penetrate them. They can come down only if they were painted on canvas or another backing that allows removal, and only for restoration, preservation and reinstallation under the supervision of a qualified decorative arts conservator.
The next clause, Section 8.2, is just as direct about the rest of the building:
Except as provided in 8.1, all other interior features and components are not protected and not subject to these criteria or the certificate of appropriateness process.
How the Line Got Drawn There
That split came out of a compromise. In November 2014, owners Craig Kinney and Bill Willingham told the Lakewood Advocate that the theater might be divided into several restaurant and retail spaces. Kinney said the tower would stay. The neighborhood got more nervous in August 2015, when the seats were being thrown out, according to The Dallas Morning News.
What happened next went quickly:
- In 2015, Landmark Commission chair Katherine Seale started the designation process without the owners' consent after the demolition work alarmed neighbors.
- Kinney and Willingham then hired East Dallas preservation architect Norman Alston to write the preservation criteria and guide the designation, as the Advocate reported in September 2015.
- By December 2015, the tower, the signage, the box office and Perry Nichols's lobby murals were on the protected list, according to the Advocate.
- In September 2016, the Council vote made the overlay official.
The owners and the preservationists ended up writing the ordinance together. The final version protected what people see from Abrams Parkway, plus the lobby murals. Everything else inside could be leased to whatever tenant could make the old building pay for itself.
Ten Lanes Where the Seats Used to Be
That tenant was lined up in 2018. In July of that year, D Magazine reported that Bowlski's would take the building, with Craig Spivey listed as the applicant. The owners' representative said the interior would keep much of its character and that the exterior and neon would be restored.
Restoring the neon happened first. In October 2018, the Advocate reported that Kieffer-Starlite was repairing the ball on top of the tower and replacing the tower's neon. Alston said the owners chose neon over LED because LED didn't look the same. The ordinance only requires replacement lighting to closely resemble neon. The owners went further and used the real thing.
Inside, Lakewood residents Craig and Jennifer Spivey replaced the theater seats with ten bowling lanes. The lanes, wood, pinsetters and ball returns came from a closed bowling alley in Mineola. They kept the stage, the lobby murals, the stair handrails, the original bathroom tile and the mirrored lobby ceiling, as The Dallas Morning News reported in May 2019. Under Section 8.2, the lanes didn't need landmark approval. Keeping the tile, the handrails and the ceiling was the Spiveys' choice.
That was the theater's fourth life. Since 1938, the building has been a movie house, a live music venue, a burlesque stage and then Bowlski's.
A Taco Counter Comes to the Lobby
The latest change is the smallest one. Rusty Taco is replacing Double Dave's, the pizza shop that served food inside the theater for the past few years. The Balcony Club, the jazz bar on the second floor, stays as it is. Eventually, Balcony Club guests will be able to order Rusty Taco from upstairs.
The lobby menu will be shorter than at Rusty Taco's other locations. Marketing director Sherry Elbow told The News it will carry the bestsellers, including the baja shrimp, the Texican and the bacon, egg and cheese, along with the queso. Tacos generally run about $3 to $5. The opening is projected for late 2026 or early 2027 at 1825 Abrams Parkway.
The chain is local. It started on Greenville Avenue in 2010 in a renovated gas station near East University Boulevard and now has 24 restaurants in eight states. Denise Fenton, whose husband, Rusty, founded the brand, told The Dallas Morning News what drew the company to the building: "If you visit any website about Dallas, they use Lakewood Theater's very iconic facade, with the marquee." Craig Spivey told the paper that Rusty Taco "is going to be a great partner for us."
Rusty Taco is drawn by the facade the city protects, and it will operate in a lobby the city left open to change.
The Granada Sale, Four Days Earlier
The Granada news shows the same approach on a larger scale. In a column for The Dallas Morning News, Robert Wilonsky reported that Mike Schoder and Julia Garton, who bought the Granada in 2004, are selling it to Travis Talmadge and Jason Goodman, the founders of the New York company Bathhouse. The couple had turned down developers over the years. "They just wanted the dirt," Schoder said.
The Granada is replacing its entire interior use, where the Lakewood Theater is swapping one lobby tenant. The plan:
- What stays: the facade, the marquee that has lit Greenville Avenue since January 1946, and most of the exterior.
- What goes: the stage, which will become saunas and steam rooms, and the bar, which will become thermal pools.
- What gets torn down: Sundown at Granada, the restaurant next door, to make room for an expanded building.
- Timeline: the last concert is scheduled for April 17, 2027, and Bathhouse expects to reopen in mid-2028.
"You will enter Bathhouse the same way you'd enter the Granada, under the marquee," Talmadge told The News. "From there, it will feel like a very different experience." In a follow-up interview with D Magazine, he said the plans still need city and neighborhood review.
On Greenville, a private buyer offered to keep the front of the building. In Lakewood, the city required it in 2016, and that requirement is what has made the theater work for tenants as different as a bowling alley and a taco shop.
What's Open at Abrams and Gaston Right Now
Inside the theater this month:
- Bowlski's: 3 p.m. to close Monday through Thursday, 2 p.m. to close Friday, and 11 a.m. to close Saturday and Sunday, according to its website.
- The Balcony Club: live jazz upstairs, with evening shows such as its Manic Monday series listed on its music calendar.
- Rusty Taco: coming to the lobby, with an opening projected for late 2026 or early 2027.
Across Abrams, at 1901 Abrams Road in the former Petra and the Beast space, Muchacho is the next tenant. Chef Omar Flores, a five-time James Beard Award nominee, opened the original Muchacho at Preston Center in 2019 and plans a larger patio and a private dining room for the Lakewood location, the Advocate reported. The Lakewood Shopping Center site lists it as coming soon.
When Rusty Taco opens in the lobby, the ordinance will still be protecting the same tower neon, marquee and Perry Nichols murals it has protected since 2016.
At The Ryan Group, we've spent decades watching East Dallas buildings like the Lakewood Theater find new uses, and we enjoy talking about how these corners change. If you're thinking about how the shops and restaurants around Abrams and Gaston connect to your own plans in Lakewood, schedule a free consultation.
