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If you shoulda been a cowboy

Line dance the night away - and maybe see a celebrity or three - at local honky-tonks.

By JAY CRIDLIN
Published October 27, 2005

[Times photos: Brian Cassella]

The honky-tonk scene is hopping in the Tampa Bay area, including at the Dallas Bull in rural east Hillsborough County. In a few months, a new, larger Bull will open near U.S. 301 and Sabal Industrial Boulevard.

	You can leave your hat on when you arrive at the Dallas Bull in Tampa. Belt buckles are optional.

When you're Brad Paisley - that is, when you're a celebrity - you can launch a new album anywhere. Tower Records in New York, Spago in Beverly Hills, Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. Take your pick.

So where did the country superstar ask to debut his recent CD, Time Well Wasted?

Tampa. The Dallas Bull. With an intimate acoustic show for 700 fans.

"It was a no-brainer for us," said Lewis Surratt Jr., the club's co-owner and president. "We had people waiting in line at 6 o'clock in the morning."

It should come as no surprise. Fans are as loyal to the 26-year-old Bull - and other country bars like it - as they are to singers like Tim McGraw and Gretchen Wilson. Beer, ballads, line dancing, poker and Golden Tee - they're all part of the Tampa Bay area's country music culture.

Two of the area's biggest country bars, including the Bull, are planning major expansions for early next year, to accommodate growing crowds.

Button up your Wranglers. Here's a guide to three local honky-tonks that don't rock the jukebox.

THE DALLAS BULL: Founded in 1979, the Dallas Bull is the area's top dog among country nightclubs, thanks in no small part to its location in rural east Hillsborough County and its proximity to the University of South Florida.

On busy nights, cars line U.S. 301 in both directions. Hotties in tight jeans and cowboy hats are packed shoulder to shoulder on the club's two dance floors, swiveling in unison like twin schools of fish to country, techno, hip-hop and swing.

Brooks & Dunn, who play the Ford Amphitheatre Saturday night, have recently taken the stage at the Bull. So have Big & Rich and Rascal Flatts. And owners are planning more live shows starting in February, when they move to a monolithic new club a few miles down the road, near U.S. 301 and Sabal Industrial Boulevard.

The new Bull will triple the current one's capacity and nearly quadruple its usable floor space, making it one of the Southeast's largest country nightclubs.

"We'll call it country music's Field of Dreams, I guess," Surratt said. "If you build it, they will come."

For design inspiration, the owners flew to legendary clubs like Tootsie's Orchid Lounge in Nashville and Billy Bob's in Fort Worth, Texas. The new Bull will include a small banquet hall and bigger stage, complete with a spacious lounge and dressing room with a private shower. Total cost: more than $5-million.

"It's grown a little bit from what it started as," Surratt says. "But I still wonder from time to time: "Is it big enough?"'

-- A bottle of Corona costs $3.25 at the Dallas Bull. 8222 U.S. 301, Tampa, 813 987-2855 or www.dallasbull.com

THE ROUND UP: On a giant dance floor on the Hillsborough-Pinellas line, a few dozen line dancers are swiveling to a country tune that goes, "I love drunk chicks, because drunk chicks love me."

A few songs later, the dancers are grooving to the Pussycat Dolls.

Such is life at the Round Up, a strip-mall bar where, on packed, pumping weekends, DJs try to spin equal parts country and pop.

"We'll just line dance to anything," said dance instructor Paula Messier. "We don't limit it to country. There are some places that do; we don't. We want to cater to all crowds."

You might not expect that from a bar that was nominated for the Academy of Country Music's Nightclub of the Year Award in 2003. Kenny Chesney and Toby Keith have played the Round Up, and autographed glossies from artists like Charlie Daniels and Terri Clark rest beneath the glass bartop.

The Round Up has all the trappings of your standard country bar - darts, pool, neon beer signs - plus a few new twists, such as a recent "Pimps & Rode-Ho's" costume party, in which the best-dressed pimp took home a $3,000 Rolex.

"I'm not even a huge country fan, but I've been here two years," said tattooed bartender Jim Kopteros, 29. "I've done the Ybor thing. This is so much better."

After a while, even the line dancing ropes 'em in.

"You'll come here a little skeptical about it," Kopteros said. "That same person, when they get out there and have two or three drinks in them, will get out and start dancing and have a good time."

-- A bottle of Corona costs $3 at the Round Up. 13918 W Hillsborough Ave., Tampa, 813 855-1464, (813) 855-1229 or www.theroundup.com

THE WATERIN' TROUGH: Housed in a former tile store, Pinellas Park's cavernous Waterin' Trough resembles - take your pick - a giant garage or a miniature rodeo, minus the dirt.

But regulars, many of whom used to frequent closed Largo clubs like Joyland and Midnight Rodeo, swear by its earnest, no-frills feel, from the guys who bring their own pool cues to the Skoal, Jack Daniels and Wrangler banners that line the dance floor.

Mondays and Wednesdays are free Texas Hold'em nights - there's no gambling, only points, prizes and bar tabs for the winners - and each Saturday brings the "Redneck Games," such as bobbing for beer and dance-floor trike races.

"Anybody who comes in here once is guaranteed to come back," said Krissie Gallagher, 22, a Trough regular. "They don't treat you like a customer. They treat you like a friend."

That was owner Jackie Galvin's hope when she opened the Waterin' Trough a couple of years ago. And it'll be her hope when the bar moves to a new, 12,000-square-foot facility on 66th Street next spring. The signs are up, and the plans are on her Web site; she's just waiting on the paperwork.

"I know almost all of them by first name," Galvin said, gesturing toward her customers. "It's the country version of Cheers. People have their own stools."

-- A bottle of Corona costs $3.25 at the Waterin' Trough Dance & Saloon. 10707 U.S. 19 N, Pinellas Park, 727 561-9671 or www.waterintrough.com

-- Jay Cridlin can be reached at 727 893-8336 or cridlin@sptimes.com

[Last modified October 26, 2005, 10:11:06]