Walk through Bishop Arts on any given weekend and you’ll land in something Amy Cowan and Jason Roberts built. That’s been true for almost twenty years. Between them they’ve opened five concepts within a few blocks of each other in North Oak Cliff, organized the neighborhood’s two biggest street festivals, and done more to put Bishop Arts on the map than any developer or marketing campaign ever managed.
Oddfellows at 316 W. 7th Street came first, back in 2010. Weekend brunch lines have stretched down the block ever since. The food is American, the coffee is good, and the room has that lived-in quality that takes years to develop and can’t be manufactured. People bring their kids. They bring their dogs. They come back every week. That’s not marketing — that’s just what happens when a restaurant actually belongs somewhere.
At Revelers Hall, 412 N. Bishop Avenue, the idea was New Orleans. Roberts has been a musician since he was 13. He went to New Orleans in the seventh grade, heard a brass band spilling out of a bar onto the street, and spent the next several decades trying to recreate that feeling somewhere in Dallas. The room is under 1,500 square feet. It seats about 60 people. At capacity with a brass band playing and the front door open, it changes the whole block. That open door matters — it’s how people who’ve never heard of Revelers Hall find it. A trombone at 9 p.m. on a Thursday night does more advertising than any Instagram post.
In 2023 they added Jaquval Brewing Company and Trades Delicatessen at 312 W. 7th Street. The name is a pun — Jaquval and Trades, jack of all trades — and the brewery is exactly what a neighborhood pub should be. Brewer Justin Hatley, formerly of Lakewood Brewing Company, makes the beer in tanks you can see from your barstool. The Bishop Arts Lager, the Iron Swan porter, the 405 West Coast IPA. Trades is the sandwich shop next door. AJ Vagabonds, their retail store, is steps away…