On April Fool’s Day, Gabe Sanchez will celebrate the tenth anniversary of his Black Swan Saloon speakeasy with his doors shut tight. The streets of Deep Ellum are in a dream state. Plastic flags flap listlessly in the wind, loosely barricading empty parking lots, and the empty nighttime streets seem perpetually hazy with rain and neon. Some shops have boarded up their storefronts, an alarming sight that evokes a hurricane.

Instead of bustling music and a bar packed to the brim, Sanchez has been celebrating a decade of owning a business behind the hum of an immersion blender. Uncle Gabe’s Bloody Mary mix is the only way his bar can bring money in at the moment. He churns a cold concoction of tomato juice, salt, red pepper, ground celery seed, ancho chile powder, horseradish, Sriracha and chile paste, fresh lemon and lime juice. It’s all blended by hand, bottled and labeled for his customers. His mix is a clay-red stunner ― a tangy heat that’s as bright as the neon signs reflecting on empty Elm Street.

Sanchez has been selling bloody mary mixes and kits through restaurants like Salaryman and Brick & Bones to keep the lights on after the citywide order to temporarily close bars and restaurant dining rooms on March 16. Hope seems to be waning. Sanchez exhales the weight through the phone as he talks about the mad rush to apply for loans and pay his staff. Survival mode has kicked in, and owners and their staff are pivoting so fast that they’re straining limbs.

“You try to be creative like, how many different variations can I do?” Sanchez says about his bloody mary recipe. “That’s kind of it right now. Just ... try to get money to come in so you can pay your staff something.”

It was March 18 when Gov. Greg Abbott nudged away a few roadblocks for selling booze to go. Restaurants, he said, could sell beer, wine or mixed drinks ― liquor must be in sealed containers no larger than 375 milliliters, and the alcohol must be in a container that was sealed by the manufacturer ― for delivery as long as you purchase food.

So, what are owners of foodless joints like Black Swan Saloon supposed to do? “Am I going to be able to own a business in two to three weeks?” Sanchez asks. “That’s one thing. You’re scared about your friends. Is it really that important?"

Overnight, the rooms of the Statler Hotel in downtown Dallas emptied of people. Hearing Torry Cray, the Statler’s director of nightlife, describe the scene sounds like something from The Shining: She piloted a cart through the long empty hallways of floors two, three and four, making a stop in each empty room, to repurpose the tiny bottles from the minibars. The liquor wasn’t for Cray: She was stocking up for the cocktail kits they’d need to sell to keep money coming in to the bar.

“Our sole income is delivery” right now, Cray says. “We’re down to a skeleton crew.”

In addition to creatively assembling cocktail kits with in-house syrups, Cray spends her days checking in with her friends in the industry who are suddenly out of work.

“Nobody’s handling it well,” she says. “We’re a very emotional group, the service industry.” The Statler’s bars ― Primo’s, Scout, Overeasy, as well as Nosh Bistro ― are selling margarita, martini, Moscow mule, ranch water and Old-Fashioned kits. Each comes with six cups and mixers like Fever-Tree tonic and angostura bitters.

Scout at the Statler is offering cocktail kits for Moscow Mules, martinis, margaritas and more. (Statler Hotel)

Every bar and restaurant has its own story right now. Each carries a heavy burden over thinning ice. Staff who live paycheck to paycheck in a good month are filing for unemployment. And some other restaurants have also found a way to deliver cocktail kits in the chaos.

Legacy Hall offers “Boozy Kits” for curbside pickup, including make-your-own mimosas, bloody marys and frozen or on-the-rocks margaritas. There’s a Quaran’tini at Home kit, too.

Asian Mint, all four locations, offers Mai Tai kits. Butterfly pea extract, lychee juice and a lychee nut are packed in with your order. Jaxon Texas Kitchen and Beer Garden is selling enough kits to get you through Groundhog Day of 2021 (as long as it doesn’t endlessly loop). Jaxon has mango daiquiris and hot pineapple margaritas.

Snooze, an A.M. Eatery has “Booze Bundles” ― mimosa kits, bloody mary kits and a Bloody Mary Quarantine kit that includes two bottles of vodka, a gallon of mix, two lemons, celery sticks and “additional garnishes.” Let’s hope one of those garnishes is a full patty melt. Butter and bananas are sold separately.

Mai Tai cocktail kit from Asian Mint restaurant (Asian Mint)

Eddie Campbell had to move fast. When word came down on the order to close, the Standard Pour’s staff consolidated three restaurant groups overnight, planned menus, and closed their doors to repaint and re-sign. When they reopened as Standard Door Delivery, the neighbors honked their car horns and cheered. Campbell learned how to sell toilet paper and craft cocktail kits faster than a Vin Diesel movie. Moscow mules and Old-Fashioned do-it-yourself kits flew out the door. They delivered chicken fingers and vodka alongside containers of basil and sliced citrus. That was March 29.

“The only thing that we fear down here is that we’re approaching an ethical decision,” he said earlier. The decision revolved around this: By staying open, Campbell tells us, the staff’s health is at risk.

Things change quickly in our new reality, and Standard Door Delivery has closed until further notice.

“I feel that we will be putting our employees at risk unnecessarily,” he says, “So we decided to close ... at least until it is safer.”