According to the Chinese New Year, 2025 was the year of the snake, and Dallas shed more than its fair share of restaurants and bars. 

We actually started off on a high note with the closure of Salt Bae’s restaurant, Nusr-Et, which had the audacity to charge upwards of $1,000 for a steak. 

After that, local favorites started dropping like flies. Many leases seemed to come to an end with an increase in demand for space sending rent skyrocketing. Along with rising food costs, local restaurants are taking a hit.

It’s not all bad, though. Peppered into the mix are some restaurants and bars in Dallas that closed, but were remodeled and reimagined into new concepts. Others are looking for new spaces with lower rent. The rest, however, are gone for good. 

The beginning of this year will likely be no better than the last, and it’s as good a time as ever to get out and support your favorite local spots. Money tight? We know where to go.

These are all the Dallas restaurants that closed in 2025. 

It looked improbable two months ago.

Two years ago — impossible.

But against the odds, Miami and Indiana have a date in the College Football Playoff final — a first-of-its-kind matchup on Jan. 19 in the second national title game of the expanded-playoff era.

The Hoosiers (15-0), the top-seeded favorite in the 12-team tournament, stomped Oregon 56-22 on Friday night to reach the final. The Hurricanes (13-2), seeded 10th and the last at-large team to make the field, beat Mississippi 31-27 the night before.

Indiana opened as a 7 1/2-point favorite, according to the BetMGM Sportsbook.

The game is set for Hard Rock Stadium in South Florida — the long-ago-chosen venue for a game that happens to be the home of the Hurricanes. Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza is a Miami native who grew up less than a mile from the campus in Coral Gables.

“It means a little bit more to me,” Mendoza said of the title game doubling as a homecoming.

He’ll be going against the program known as “The U.” Miami won five titles between 1983 and 2001 and earned the reputation as college football’s brashest renegade.

A quarter century later, they are one side in a tale of two resurgences.

Miami’s was sparked by coach Mario Cristobal, a local boy and former ‘Cane himself who came back home four years ago to lead his alma mater to a place it hasn’t been in decades.

Among his biggest wins was luring quarterback Carson Beck to spend his final year of eligibility with the ‘Canes.

Beck, steadily rounding back to form after an elbow injury that ended his season at Georgia last year, is getting better every week. He has thrown for 15 TDs and two interceptions over a seven-game winning streak dating to Nov. 8.

“He’s hungry, he’s driven, he’s a great human being, and all he wants to do is to see his teammates have success,” Cristobal said after Beck threw for 268 yards and ran for the winning touchdown against Ole Miss.

It was the latest step in a long climb from No. 18 in the season’s first CFP rankings on Nov. 4 — barely within shouting distance of the bubble — after their second loss of the season.

The Hurricanes haven’t lost since.

Hoosiers rise from nowhere to the edge of a title

Indiana’s climb to the top is an even longer haul. This is the program that had a nation-leading 713 losses over 130-plus years heading into the 2024 season. Since then, only two.

The turnaround is thanks to coach Curt Cignetti, who arrived from James Madison and declared: “It’s pretty simple. I win. Google me,” while explaining his confident tone at a signing day news conference in December 2023 when he landed the core of the class that has taken Indiana from obscurity to the edge of a title.

But Indiana’s biggest catch came about a year ago from the transfer portal — the oxygen that drives the current game.

Mendoza, who went to the same high school as Cristobal in Miami, chose Indiana as the place to finish his career. So far, he has won the Heisman Trophy and is all but assured to be a top-five pick in the NFL draft.

“Can’t say enough about him,” Cignetti said.

One more win and he’ll bring a national title and an undefeated season to Indiana, an even 50 years after the Hoosiers’ 1975-76 basketball team, led by coach Bob Knight, did the same.

Lots of people could see that one coming. Hard to say the same about this.

CFP selection committee almost kept this game from happening

It might seem like ancient history, but Miami almost didn’t make the playoffs.

In its first ranking of the season, back in November, the CFP selection committee ranked the Hurricanes eight spots behind a Notre Dame team they beat to start the season.

The history of Miami’s slow crawl up the standings, then its leapfrogging past the Irish for the last spot, has been well-documented. If Miami’s trip to the final proved anything, it’s how off-base the committee was when it started the ’Canes at 18, even if they were coming off a loss at SMU, its second of the season.

Though these programs haven’t met since the 1960s, there is familiarity.

One of the best games of 2024 was Miami’s comeback from 25 points down to beat Cal. The quarterback for the Bears: Mendoza, who threw for 285 yards but got edged out by Cam Ward in a 39-38 loss.

With Ward headed for the NFL, the Hurricanes were a consideration for Mendoza as he sought a new spot to finish out his college career. But he picked Indiana, Beck moved to Miami, and now, they meet.

Miami cashes in big

The College Football Playoff will distribute $20 million to the Big Ten and Atlantic Coast Conferences for placing their teams in the finals — that’s $4 million for making it, $4 million for getting to the quarters, then $6 million each for the semis and finals.

While the Big Ten divvies up that money evenly between its 18 members, Miami keeps it all for itself — part of a “success initiatives program” the ACC started last season that allows schools to keep all the postseason money they make in football and basketball.

Atlanta Hawks (19-21, ninth in the Eastern Conference) vs. Golden State Warriors (21-18, eighth in the Western Conference)

San Francisco; Sunday, 8:30 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: Golden State will try to keep its three-game home win streak alive when the Warriors face Atlanta.

The Warriors are 13-5 on their home court. Golden State is 9-12 against opponents over .500.

The Hawks have gone 12-10 away from home. Atlanta ranks second in the league scoring 17.6 fast break points per game. Nickeil Alexander-Walker leads the Hawks averaging 3.9.

The Warriors average 15.9 made 3-pointers per game this season, 2.8 more made shots on average than the 13.1 per game the Hawks give up. The Hawks average 14.5 made 3-pointers per game this season, 2.4 more made shots on average than the 12.1 per game the Warriors allow.

TOP PERFORMERS: Jimmy Butler III is averaging 19.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and 4.9 assists for the Warriors. Stephen Curry is averaging 25.7 points and 5.1 assists over the past 10 games.

Onyeka Okongwu is averaging 16.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 3.3 assists for the Hawks. Jalen Johnson is averaging 21.1 points over the last 10 games.

LAST 10 GAMES: Warriors: 7-3, averaging 120.1 points, 42.5 rebounds, 30.4 assists, 8.9 steals and 4.6 blocks per game while shooting 47.5% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 115.0 points per game.

Hawks: 4-6, averaging 116.9 points, 42.4 rebounds, 31.9 assists, 10.1 steals and 4.2 blocks per game while shooting 47.1% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 116.0 points.

INJURIES: Warriors: Seth Curry: out (thigh).

Hawks: Kristaps Porzingis: out (achilles), Zaccharie Risacher: out (knee), CJ McCollum: out (quad), N’Faly Dante: out for season (knee), Corey Kispert: out (hamstring).

___

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.