DALLAS — The paved parking lot, polished decor and high-speed Internet access ports along the dance floor seem more urban than cowboy.
But the mechanical bull tells visitors they're in the new version of Gilley's, the rowdy honky-tonk made famous by John Travolta's 1980 movie "Urban Cowboy" — the saloon that made country cool.
"People have never forgotten about Gilley's," said Doug Keller, the new club's general manager. "They've got a memory, they've got a story and it all goes back to one thing — having a good time."
The movie, starring Debra Winger and a young Travolta fresh from "Saturday Night Fever" success, popularized pearl snaps on shirts, longneck beers and the steel guitar.
"Suddenly, the whole nation was interested in all things country," said Jay Orr, senior director of museum programs with the Country Music Hall of Fame. "It became chic to live the country lifestyle, to like country music."
But folks pining for beer-joint brawls and the smoky concrete prairie depicted in the movie won't find them at the new Gilley's.
"The other one was just a big metal shed. If you weren't dirty when you got there, you were dirty by the time you got to the front door because of the mud holes in the parking lot," said David Coggins, 44, who brought his wife to a preview opening of the new club. "When you say ambience, for that place, it was just mold and mildew from spilled beers."
No more. "We're going to try and keep it clean and nice and keep the fights and everything down," said Mickey Gilley, the club's piano-pounding, country-singing namesake.
In an Urban Cowboy-themed performance on Friday, Gilley was to share the stage with singer Johnny Lee, whose velvet voice crooned the song that the film's Bud and Sissy fell in love to: "Lookin' for Love."
Gilley lives outside Houston in Pasadena, site of the original club, which the film turned into an overnight tourist draw. It shut down in 1989 after Gilley and partner Sherwood Cryer feuded over how to run the place. A fire gutted it soon after and Gilley sold the naming rights to Dallas-based developer Matthews Southwest.
The classier, albeit smaller Gilley's features a 10,000 square-foot walnut dance floor, state-of-the-art acoustics and a musical lineup that includes the Dallas Jazz Legends Festival, homegrown hip-hop star Erykah Badu and a house band that can belt out George Strait and the Beach Boys in the same breath.
The club also has tentatively booked blues legend Bo Diddley, Prince protege Morris Day and a couple of Tejano acts.
"Our roots are definitely about country but we're not just country," said Keller.
"Urban Cowboy" was inspired by an article Aaron Latham wrote for Esquire magazine in 1978, "The Ballad of the Urban Cowboy: America's Search for True Grit." Through the lives of a couple of Gilley's regulars, Latham told of the story of Houston petrochemical plant workers who escaped their boring realities by donning costumes of the cowboy and sliding into a western bar where they could act out a role in one of America's most enduring myths.
The new Gilley's, in the renovated warehouse near downtown Dallas, will host conventions by day — hence the Internet access. But the mechanical bull promises to keep the cowboy myth alive by night.
It's not the original black leather bull from the movie. The new one, Titan, has a head and horns while the old one was headless. It costs $5 to ride instead of $2.
Carole DeWolf, a 51-year-old Colorado nurse in Dallas for training, headed straight for the mechanical beast one night last week.
"I'm into bull riding," said DeWolf, who had never been on one before. "I like cowboys. I'm fascinated by how they can stay on."
On the Net: www.gilleysdallas.com