Dallas Arts District restaurant Proof + Pantry, a place we described as a "high-energy gastropub" when it opened in 2014, has closed. The restaurant is marked "Permanently Closed" on Facebook, though the restaurant has not yet issued a statement.
Proof + Pantry was operated by Michael Martensen, one of the leaders of the modern cocktail movement in Dallas. He wrote on Facebook on May 15, "Tough days are hard. Today was one of the toughest. For those I let down I'm sorry. For those I picked up I will do it again. Tomorrow is a new day with new opportunities good or bad. I'm ready for tomorrow."
He didn't respond to a request for comment.
In a CultureMap story about the closure, Teresa Gubbins wrote that a staffer said Proof + Pantry "had been closed for about a week."
Proof + Pantry was well-known inside of (and outside of) The Dallas Morning News because in 2014, Martensen and Sal Jafar II told our then-critic Leslie Brenner they didn't want her reviewing the restaurant. Undeterred, she went back for a second visit, wrapped as a mummy on Halloween. "Both times I dined there," Brenner wrote in 2014, "... we had a wonderful time and quite liked the food." She gave it three stars.
Proof + Pantry was located in down the street from the Winspear Opera House and the Meyerson Symphony Center in the Dallas Arts District. It's part of One Arts Plaza, a residential and office building with restaurants at its base. The remaining One Arts Plaza restaurants are Tei-An; a revered Japanese restaurant; Jorge's, a Tex-Mex spot; and Yolk, a breakfast place.
Martensen is hosting an event called Shaken + Stirred, a cocktail party during Savor Dallas, on May 18 at the Fashion Industry Gallery in Dallas. Savor Dallas is produced by CrowdSource, the experiential division of Belo Media Group and a subsidiary of A.H. Belo Corporation, which also owns The Dallas Morning News.
