Introduction to AllGood Cafe
Dallas’ AllGood Cafe, a friendly hangout for artists craving comfort food in Deep Ellum, was in jeopardy of closure. In a swift decision to save AllGood, a Dallas couple will “revive and freshen up” the 25-year-old venue, said Robin Gill, one of the new owners.
She’s joined in the effort by her partner, Dallas musician John Pedigo.
The two wouldn’t have dreamed of owning AllGood even a month ago, they told The Dallas Morning News. A friend mentioned the Main Street haunt was probably going to close because founder Mike Snider — a longtime fixture in Deep Ellum — was ready to retire.
“I said, ‘That can’t happen,’” Pedigo said. “This is a really important place. Somebody wants to buy it.”
He and Gill ended up being those somebodies.
Longtimers who don’t want AllGood Cafe’s memorabilia to be touched shouldn’t worry: The new owners understand the venue’s importance to Deep Ellum.
Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
Gill went to culinary school and has a career in restaurant operations. Pedigo is a musician and record producer, currently working with Joshua Ray Walker and the Old 97’s. He’s known in Dallas for his bands the O’s and Boys Named Sue, and he also runs a radio show on KHYI 95.3 The Range.
Pedigo’s role at AllGood will be to set the music schedule. Gill will run the restaurant day to day. They both want to spruce up AllGood: maybe knock some dust off the posters and streamline the menu, the two say. But, they’re aware this 25-year-old cafe has deep roots in Deep Ellum. Bars come and go. Deep Ellum gets rowdy. AllGood was always there, like a worn-in couch at a friend’s house.
“We’re trying to be very respectful of the space,” Gill said. “And of its legacy.”
AllGood Cafe, then and now
When Snider opened AllGood in mid-2000, he was already a music promoter for venues like Sons of Hermann Hall and the Gypsy Tea Room.
As the COVID-19 pandemic and downtown Dallas riots in mid-2020 caused some businesses to close, AllGood Cafe stayed open.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
His vision for AllGood was to create a casual place where musicians and their friends could hang out. Maybe they’d grab a guitar and pick a few songs up on the modest stage.
From the way Pedigo tells it, Snider wanted AllGood to feel like a Dallas version of Threadgill’s in Austin, now just a memory after the historic spot closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
From AllGood’s start, the slogan was “make love, not money.” It’s still on the T-shirts today.
“Do you know how many people who live in Dallas get up and have one passion in life, which is making money?” Snider said a quarter-century ago in a Dallas Morning News story. “That’s what they live for 24 hours a day. We like to make love, make food, make music, make fun and make friends.”
(They also make a mean huevos rancheros, chili, meatloaf and chicken-fried steak.)
