Stubbornness is one of the most notable qualities of the owners of The Stoneleigh P, a 51-year-old Dallas bar.
But, sometimes, things change.
Like this: After serving the Dallas “fringe” community for 50 years, the Stoneleigh P lost its lease in Uptown. It moved from Maple Avenue to Lemmon Avenue in Dallas, against founder Tom Garrison’s wishes.
He’d dug his heels in on plenty of other things since the bar opened in 1973, though. Ketchup would never be served with the P’s famous burgers, he once said.
“What are you, a Yankee?” he’d bark at anybody asking for the red stuff. Then he’d grin like a Cheshire cat.
Well, ketchup was added years later, after his daughter Laura Garrison suggested the bar add french fries to the menu. Fries need ketchup, she said.
Tom allowed it. Begrudgingly.
Besides, they still had the no-Coors thing.
“If there’s one thing he won’t do, it’s add Coors,” Laura told The Dallas Morning News in 2023. The P had always been proudly anti-conformity, and Tom thought selling Coors was like joining a popularity contest.
Well.
For the bar’s 52nd birthday month — April — Laura is adding Coors Banquet and Coors Light to the menu. She’s even bringing in “obnoxious” Coors signs so nobody misses the memo.
But why?
“There’s not one day that goes by when we’re not asked for Coors,” Laura said. “If people keep asking for it, why don’t we just do it?”
There’s another reason, too: buzz.
Laura challenges customers that if more than 2,000 Coors beers are sold between April 1 and May 1, 2025, it’ll stay on the menu for good.
Her dad’s mad, but he isn’t fighting her on it.
“He sees the signs and snarls,” she said.
It may not seem like a major move, but for Stoneleigh P loyalists, this is record-scratch stuff. Tom proudly left Coors off the menu for decades. Except for that one time, when a beer rep told Tom decades ago he’d win a trip to Hawaii if he sold Coors to the Stoneleigh P. Tom bought a small amount — the non-alcoholic version, which still makes Tom laugh — and the beer rep got the trip to Hawaii.
Time will tell if unprecedented Coors consumption will make this legendary Dallas bar cry uncle.
So what’s left for the P to be obstinate about? You still can’t play Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” before Dec. 1, a stance that’s put Laura on the national news.
The sign saying so still hangs on the jukebox.
Don’t even try it, Coors drinkers.
Stoneleigh P is at 4218 Lemmon Ave., Dallas.
