A steady down beat pulsates throughout the room as chatter provides a consistent melody. A DJ carefully crafts the smooth flow between each song, layering music across genre lines. This isn’t the Top 40 hits found on the radio, but house music picked up by businesses across Dallas.

The apparent originators of the recent house music buzz come from New York and Los Angeles. Countless TikTok videos show pop-up events at coffee shops, pizza joints and more, with DJs as the main event.

The trend found its way to Giuliana Bernini, the co-founder of The Berni Bean Coffee Company.

Inspired by the events, she created Berni Beats, a monthly event at Berni Beans’ Deep Ellum location, with a DJ, local vendors and of course, Berni Beans coffee.

While Bernini followed a viral trend, she says music has been a central part of the shop. Their location in downtown Dallas has a stage for local music acts to perform.

“We always knew we wanted to support local artists and join people through music. It’s really important to us,” Bernini said. “We saw the trend pop up in Los Angeles, and we felt like it was a good opportunity to bring people together. And we love house music.”

Bernini opened The Berni Bean Coffee Company in January 2021 on North St. Paul Street. The company expanded to Deep Ellum in 2023 and opened a coffee stand at GoodSurf Beach Club a year later.

For Bernini, both music and coffee are a family affair. Many members of Bernini’s family, including her brother and co-founder, Stefano, are musicians. Bernini, who’s originally from Costa Rica, grew up around agriculture as her family has been producing coffee in Costa Rica for over 200 years.

“All the memories I have of my grandma were always through coffee,” Bernini said. “We would sit down, and eat and drink coffee every single meal. It was always something I loved, and it was something we shared.”

Art and beats

RaSun Kazadi, co-founder of Nostalgia and Noise, built house music into his company’s ethos. Kazadi, a Southern Methodist University graduate, started the company in January 2024 alongside co-founder and fellow SMU alumnus, Rob Grass. Both questioned why social media virality doesn’t translate for artists in the same way it does for musicians.

“When I saw [musicians], they had a ton of followers on Instagram or if their social media presence is inviting and invokes a clear sense of who the person is, there’s going to be a stadium sold out,” Kazadi said. “Trying to do that as an artist, a lot of times, the only way you can monetize is through selling your work.”

Nostalgia and Noise seeks to provide a solution, primarily through events that combine music and art. Kazadi and Grass tapped into a younger audience that may have considered purchasing art as inaccessible for them.

“That’s why we lean event heavy. That’s where you can get the most people to notice that art isn’t the 6 foot piece encased in acrylic. It can also be this really talented artist who’s selling a $200 print or a $50 print,” Kazadi said. “There’s a range for everyone.”

The decision to bring house music to Nostalgia and Noise events came after Kazadi visited New York in 2022. During a night out, he saw a room of people from vastly different professional backgrounds united by music.

“I’ve never seen music bring people together as much as it did in that second,” Kazadi said.

He also remarked on his own musical differences from Grass, noting house music provided the seamless integration of their tastes.

“I like Wu Tang Clan and some of this stuff that’s a bit more in your face, and my business partner, Rob, loves Fred again and Khruangbin,” Kazadi said. “I feel like we both connected in house.”

Karen Landay, an assistant professor in the University of North Texas’ management department, has studied music in the workplace from music’s position in the workplace throughout history to its current implications on modern workspaces.

“The long and short of it is that people like music,” Landay said. “Whether it’s customers, whether it’s employees, people just really enjoy music.”

Creating a community through music

These businesses not only hinge on house music but also community. For The Berni Bean Coffee Company, community sits at their cornerstone. Bernini notes the company lives by three Cs: community, culture and coffee. It’s the reason why Bernini believes in the Berni Beats pop-ups and other efforts to give back, such as its pledge to donate 1% of proceeds to rainforest conservation.

“We’re constantly trying to give back to people for coming and supporting us,” Bernini said. “I want it to be an exchange, not just ‘Hey come buy my coffee and leave.’ I want them to hang out, be our friend and feel like we’re approachable.”

For Nostalgia and Noise, its community consists of both artists and art appreciators. Kazadi points to the words of Virgil Abloh, the fashion designer who blended street style and luxury fashion as the first African American artistic director for Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton or LVMH, who described the purist and the tourist as a means to build a community on a collective artistic journey.

“We want to get people who are really into art. This is their lifestyle, this is what they do. We also wanted to get people who were like ‘Oh, I’m interested in it [art]. I don’t know anything about it but I want to be around it.’ And that’s the tourist to us,” Kazadi said. “We found that house music, DJs and remixes, it really does intersect between those two people.”