Dallas Morning News
LAS VEGAS NIGHTCLUB DRAI’S TO OPEN IN DALLAS
Las Vegas venue Drai’s — the nightclub where 2 Chainz, Quavo and Ja Rule are set to play in the next week — will expand to Dallas in 2024.
The Frank Sinatra-inspired club and restaurant is expected to open at 3113 Ross Ave., adjacent to the pink-walled XOXO Dining Room.
Drai’s has been around since 1993, first as a party pool in Hollywood that has since closed. Victor Drai opened his eponymous nightclub on the Las Vegas Strip in 1997, with a beach club at the same property following in 2016.
It’s Drai’s first foray into Dallas, but Vice President of Entertainment Dustin Drai is familiar with the area as a graduate of Southern Methodist University.
Drai’s joins a long list of Vegas-born and Vegas-bred restaurants and nightclubs shimmying into North Texas. Some new examples include La Neta Cocina y Lounge and Sugar Factory, both of which have glitzy Vegas beginnings. Other concepts like Komodo and Villa Azur, both from Miami, are using words like “vibe dining” or “high energy” to describe a music-drinks-food hybrid that Drai’s will also likely emulate.
These restaurants host dinner parties, emphasis on party.
Drai’s will open in a sector of Dallas just east of the Arts District. Within a mile, at least a half-dozen clubs have opened near Ross Avenue or Good Latimer Expressway, turning that zone of Dallas into a late-night party spot.
Drai’s Dallas will be 15,000 square feet with a sultry supper club and a stage in the center for “cabaret-style live entertainment,” a press release explains. (To clarify, it is not a strip club.) Performers will include pianists, solo singers and small bands, a spokeswoman says.
The Dallas venue will not have a pool.
The Dallas restaurant will also have a members-only lounge modeled after Drai’s After Hours in Vegas. Drai’s is accepting members in Dallas now.
Drai’s is a partnership between the Vegas-based nightclub company and Veeral Rathod and Obi Ibeto, the Dallas-based creators of XOXO Dining Room and the coming-soon Lyla. Lyla is expected to open in August 2023 on McKinney Avenue in Dallas, in place of the longtime Primo’s.
Drai’s is expected to open at 3113 Ross Ave., Dallas, in late 2024.
