Scenes >>

• Scenes: The Master Of Spin
  Web extra: Video of DJ Drop at a Definition DJs meet-up. Before a team on MTV's America's Best Dance Crew tackled B-Hamp's "Do the Ricky Bobby," before Shaq and Lebron performed their best takes on the GS Boyz' "Stanky Legg" at the 2009 NBA All-Star Game, and even before The New York Times... More >>
• Best Gay Bar
  Round Up Saloon
  Be prepared to enter a whole new world: photos displayed on flat screens of muscular, all-American men in cowboy hats with hairless chests; a front "parlor" for karaoke where "they sing all the time," said a bouncer; and an authentic, good-sized dance floor for country dancing. Above the sunken... More >>
• Best Spot for Nature Lovers
  Trinity River Audubon Center
  This spot, located only eight minutes from downtown, used to be an illegal dump. The construction debris and rotting garbage caught fire and burned for a month in 1997. But millions of dollars and many years later, the city has turned the 120-acre site into a home for hundreds of bird species... More >>
• Best Pool Bar
  The Joule Hotel
  The lobby of the Joule Hotel is a dark cavern that stretches far into the building. It's full of mesmerizing artwork by Andy Warhol and a rotating installation on the ceiling. Pay it no mind. Make your way to the row of elevators on the right. Get off at the 10th floor and push open the exit... More >>
• Best Spot to Meet the Fledgling Community in Downtown
  City Tavern
  City Tavern is the Cheers of downtown. Everybody knows your name. That's because most patrons are downtown residents, especially on any given weekday. As the downtown population has grown from 200 to 6,000 residents in the last 15 years, the Tavern has been transformed by demand into the... More >>
• Best Bar & Best Jukebox (1 Comment)
  The Windmill Lounge
  What do we want—no, wait—what do we need from a bar for it to be a great bar, a go-to bar or, if the heavens align correctly, a home bar? Ample seating. Clean restrooms. An area outdoors for the smokers. Music. Stomach lining options. Good classic hooch. Great service. A TV to stare... More >>
• Best Cheap Morning After
  Barbec's and Boutique Pet Shop and Aquarium
  It's no secret that a greasy breakfast complete with Barbec's legendary beer biscuits is one of the best hangover cures in Dallas. If you find yourself treating your date to one of their famous breakfasts (lucky you), don't forget to stop by the free zoo that is Boutique Pet Shop, where the... More >>
• Best Spooky Drive
  Mountain Creek Parkway
  Not many drives in Dallas can compare with the surreal scene that is Mountain Creek Parkway. Take the exit off Southbound Loop 12 and you'll come upon the desolate lakeshore that borders the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery—you might see the occasional van full of misguided fishermen... More >>
• Best Tourist Attraction
  Arts District
  When people come to Dallas, they usually go to a strip club, see where JFK was shot, eat atop Reunion Tower or visit a sports venue (two of which are 20 miles away in Arlington). Some choose more than one, and others may add Deep Ellum or White Rock Lake to their lists, but those leaving town... More >>
• Best Beer Joint
  Flying Saucer Draught Emporium
  One of the great joys of traveling is trying new beers that are hard to find in your home town. But who has the money to travel these days? Fortunately, if your travel budget has gone from Amsterdam, Germany and Fort Lauderdale to Addison, Garland and Fort Worth, you can still make like a... More >>
• Best Neighborhood Advocate
  Jason Roberts
  The revitalization of Oak Cliff couldn't happen without the efforts of selfless, community-minded volunteers like Jason Roberts. He's an IT consultant, a husband and a father, but his volunteer efforts alone would be enough to drive a lesser man mad. He co-founded the nonprofit Art Conspiracy,... More >>
• Best Late-Night Coffee and Wi-Fi
  Buli Café
  The blue glow of laptops lights up the faces of Buli Café's regular late-night customers. Sitting along the wall against faux-fur cushions are budding screenwriters, playwrights, Facebook freaks and others with reasons to be online after dark. The nighttime crowd here comes in for strong... More >>
• Best Bar Food
  The Libertine
  There are plenty of reasons why the Libertine deserves recognition—the traditional pub atmosphere, the friendly faces behind the bar, and the fact that, even though it's not much of a venue, the place does its part to support local music with live performances. But the best reason to love... More >>
• Best Live Music Venue
  Granada Theater
  Imagine, if you will, the type of live music venue that'd be opened by a grown-up, matured hippie—one who's survived years of hitting the road and following his favorite jam bands for entire tours. It'd probably look and feel exactly like the Granada Theater. And that's just what the... More >>
• Best Dance Club (1 Comment)
  Fallout Lounge
  Don't expect a red carpet or a VIP list here—it's a divey sort of place where you can never be sure what lies in store. Relatively small and cave-like, with a rustic concrete floor and DJs spinning on the weekends, it tends to turn into an all-out dance party on Friday nights. Like any... More >>
• Best Rock Bar
  The Double Wide
  Sure, there's the live music room across the patio. That helps. But the Double Wide wins points because you don't have to hit the music room—or pay that room's separate cover charge—to enjoy a night of fine music and good friends. Regularly playing host to a couple of the region's... More >>
• Best Poorly Lit Chicas Bonitas
  The Palms Beer Express
  All over Dallas, people are just trying to make it happen. Trying to keep the paychecks coming, trying to drum up business. Everyone's heard that "sex sells," but in the last few years, the phrase seems to have changed to "sexy chicks outside buildings in swimsuits with spotlights directed at... More >>
• Best Honky-Tonk
  Adair's Saloon
  The King Bucks may have left their Monday night residency that carried this honky-tonk for the past two years, but the fact remains: If you wanna throw on some cowboy boots, throw back some Lone Star and throw your dance partner around the floor without much regard for anyone judging you from... More >>
• Best Jazz Club
  The Amsterdam Bar
  This Exposition Park staple isn't really a jazz club, but step into this European-styled bar on a Monday night and, traditional jazz room settings be damned, you're gonna see yourself as good a night of jazz performance as offered by any other venue in town. Bad Ass Jazz, as the night is called,... More >>
• Best Latin Club
  Escapade 2009
  Don't really know the logic behind this massive, longtime area favorite being named Escapade 2009, as it has been for some time now, but, hey, at least it makes it easier when saying things like, "Hey, Escapade, this really is your year, huh?" Nyuk, nyuk. But, seriously, there are like a... More >>
• Best Blues Club (1 Comment)
  Pearl at Commerce
  Here's the deal, Dallas: Considering how important a role the blues played in our city's musical history (y'know, "Deep Ellum Blues," and all that), it's really a goddamn shame how there aren't all that many clubs—well, many clubs worth mentioning, at least—that offer up the genre on... More >>
• Best Alternative Club
  Jack's Backyard
  'Bout a year ago, back when Jack's first opened, a buddy of mine convinced us to check the place out, promising that the then-new Oak Cliff spot was gonna be quite the big deal in the very near future. Sure enough, what we saw upon arrival was, indeed, quite the chic, if somewhat hidden, hot... More >>
• Best Radio Station
  The Indie-Verse
  You won't find The Indie-Verse on your AM or FM dials. And only for a short period of time could you even find the station on your HD2 frequencies (assuming you're the only person in the world to actually have one of those receivers). But here's the trick about The Indie-Verse: You might only be... More >>
• Best Radio DJ (2 Comments)
  Mark Schectman
  He might take over your FM dial only once a week—and on Sunday nights, no less—but Mark Schectman deserves some serious praise for the way he's been running his Local Show on The Edge since taking over the hour-long slot earlier this year. Unlike some of his predecessors, Schectman... More >>
• Best Local Album Release
  Teenage Cool Kids
  Twelve tracks and a hair over 37 minutes long, this late spring release from Denton's Teenage Cool Kids surprised more than a few people with something poppier than listeners might've come to expect from this previously kinda snotty, lo-fi punk quartet of Andrew Savage (guitar, lead vocals),... More >>
• Best Local Music Web Site (2 Comments)
  NTX Showlist
  There's not much to it, really. In fact, NTXshowlist is solely what its name makes it out to be: a Web site that does nothing but display each day's concert listings, offering up gigs from touring and local acts alike. But, in today's convoluted, Flash-driven and commenter-ruined Internet age,... More >>
• Best Place to Awkwardly Applaud Bush
  The Mercury
  It's happened at least once. We have a personal account from a trusted source and read that saucy little blurb from The Dallas Morning News' Alan Peppard: In April, Preston Hollow residents George W. and Lady Laura arrived fully backed by black SUVs and Secret Service to dine at the Mercury... More >>
• Best Pre-Rock Belly Stuffing
  Studio Bar & Grill
  There's really only one reason to ever bother going to the Studio Bar & Grill: You're heading out to catch a show at one of the three rooms of the massive Palladium complex on South Lamar, and you didn't have the chance to grab a bite to eat before you had to run out the door. But, oh what a... More >>
• Best Twitter Takedown
  WhyDentonSucks
  It's tough to say who's behind this Twitter account that hates on all things little d, calling out people by name and doing so without remorse. And, actually, it can get pretty harsh at times. Like when a certain musician got called out for looking like "one of Prince's illegitimate children"... More >>
• Best Excuse To Shoegaze
  Kixpo
  Don't let the Uptown yuppies in their Polo shirts and Banana Republic slacks fool you: There is, indeed, quite the hip streetwear fashion scene in Dallas—and it's growing every year. Case in point: Kixpo, Dallas' annual sneaker and streetwear expo. Run by a group of sneaker and streetwear... More >>
• Best Not-Quite-Nostalgia Fodder
  Trees
  Back in August, when Clint and Whitney Barlow reopened the much-loved space that once saw Kurt Cobain get his ass kicked by a security guard, they had to deal with the pressure of living up to the hype of the club of the same name, which had closed four and a half years earlier. And because it... More >>
• Best Place To Ogle, Uh, Sure, Let's Go With Platinum Record Plaques
  The Clubhouse
  Yes, The Clubhouse, like so many other establishments on Manana Drive, is a strip club. And, as strip clubs go, it's probably not the tops in town. But, unlike the other gentlemen's establishments of the region, this one offers more to stare at than naked women. Owned by Arlington native and... More >>
• Best Men's Club
  Baby Dolls
  Designing a topless bar is like cooking a bowl of porridge for Goldilocks. Dim the house lights, flood it with too much black light and pump up the DJ's volume, and the environment is just too distracting, making it hard to see what you came there to see. On the other hand, boost the lighting... More >>
• Best 24-Hour People Watching
  Café Brazil near University
  This is one of the few places in town that's so naughtily diverse. There's always a decent array of fauna, but between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m. it runs the gamut from strippers unwinding after a shift and pimps with hookers in tow to hot cops, students in the midst of finals,... More >>
• Best Roof Top Margaritas
  Iron Cactus
  This rooftop patio is hands-down among the best in town. You can sit at the bar under the stars or grab a table at which to enjoy shots of tequila or margaritas accompanied by fajitas, nachos or fish tacos. The tequila selection is vast, from Cuervo on the bottom end to El Tesoro Paradiso and... More >>
• Best Humanitarian Hangout (1 Comment)
  Urban Dog Coffee
  Since Starbucks became the new McDonald's, finding a good independent, local coffee shop can be tough. But after Brady Cottle took over and renovated this Oak Lawn establishment, it offers delicious home-brewed coffee and espresso drinks, pastries by local baker extraordinaire Samantha Rush... More >>
• Best Place to Make a Livable Wage
  It's a Grind
  Who would have thought that a swift-boating Dallas billionaire would raise a daughter with a strong social conscience? But Serena Simmons Connelly, a social worker and the daughter of Harold Simmons, is one of the backers of It's a Grind, a unique Deep Ellum coffee shop dedicated to the mission... More >>
• Best Pool Party
  The Double Wide
  Yeah, it's cool the Double Wide has had an electric bull in its parking lot. We owned that animal, by the way. But this year, when the Fourth of July came around with triple-digit torture, the ol' D-Dub provided some low-budget relief. Those watching the Fair Park Fourth fireworks from the DW's... More >>
• Best Dog Park
  Unleashed
  With the advent of new dog parks around the metroplex, this competition has gotten downright dog-eat-dog. (Sorry.) It would be easy to bark up the same old tree (another apology) and give the Mockingbird Point Dog Park at White Rock Lake, which teaches socialization skills for both man and... More >>
• Best Happy Hour
  Bavarian Grill's Stein Hour, 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays
  The drink specials aren't all that special during Stein Hour at Bavarian Grill: $2.75 domestic longnecks, $3.25 Loewenbraus, or a dollar off selected drafts. They're better than nothing, but going to a bar with so many great German brews only to drink domestic longnecks (or Loewenbrau, for that... More >>
• Best Kids Outing
  Pay What You Can Dallas Theater Center Performances
  Just keeping kids alive until their 18th birthdays is expensive enough. You shouldn't have to break open their piggy banks to give them the occasional cultural experience. The Dallas Theater Center apparently understands this and offers Pay What You Can nights for select Sunday night preview... More >>
• Best Playground
  Storybook Playhouse
  They're gonna tear our playhouses down come late December, which still gives you plenty of time to see what they planted in the ground for Dallas Blooms back in March—16 architectural treats reflecting the wonder and wisdom contained in kiddie-book classics. Swings and slides are nice and... More >>
• Best Place to Second-Hand Smoke
  Denton
  Since the smoking ban, places in Dallas are still a bit stale, but it's nothing compared to the stank that once permeated hair and clothing after a night out in Big D. Even smokers had to spray down and air out. But no more. No more, that is, unless you go to see a band in Denton. Sure, Fort... More >>
• Best Place to Work That's Not the Office
  Crooked Tree Coffeehouse
  Sometimes the office, with its unnatural lighting and extreme temperatures, can get on your nerves and make you unproductive. Not to mention unfriendly. Get out for an afternoon and haul your laptop to this independent coffee house that feels more like a loving pal's living room. The furniture... More >>
• Best Patio
  Bolsa
  Sure, the great food and wine selection keeps the clientele at Bolsa satisfied despite the long waits and occasionally lazy service. It's the décor that really sells it, however—anyone who knew it in its former incarnation as Settles Auto Garage would be amazed with the clean, airy... More >>
• Best Scenic Associate's DEGREE
  Mountain View College
  Colleges and universities always use the campus scenery to entice prospective students, but if you're looking into a Dallas County Community College, it's understandable if scenery falls far below practicality and affordability on your list of priorities. After all, El Centro and Eastfield are... More >>
• Best Hike & Custard
  Cedar Ridge Preserve
  The trails at Southwest Dallas' Audubon-managed Cedar Ridge Preserve make for some of the best hiking in North Texas. Whether you pick the leisurely Possumhaw Trail or the heavy woods and elevation changes of the Cedar Break Trail, you're sure to enjoy the experience, which puts the hiking at... More >>
• Best Illogical Immigrants
  The Monk Parakeets at White Rock Lake
  Even if you've heard of monk parakeets—the accidentally introduced, bright green parrots known to nest in several American cities—it's still eye-opening when a flock of them flies clumsily over the jogging trail at White Rock Lake, loudly squawking all the way. The curious can find... More >>
• Best Local Daily Sports Columnist
  Kevin Sherrington
  While his columnist colleagues at The Dallas Morning News abuse the word "ridiculous" or parlay their day jobs into multimedia careers, Sherrington routinely turns a pretty cool magic trick. He writes like he's old, without actually being old. Granted, he recently survived a serious health... More >>
• Other Winning Scenes Suggestions From Our Readers
  Best Place for a Kids’ Party Pump It Up 9201 Forest Lane, No. 100 972-792-9663 More >>