Rinse Cycle

Waterfalls are mostly good things: They beautify yards and public spaces; they create white noise that can cause blissful drowsiness; and they make swell vertical thoroughfares to traverse in a barrel. But sometimes waterfalls kind of suck, especially if they invade your space when you already have one installed. Just ask Chasen Morey, general manager of Dakota's restaurant downtown. On the morning of August 9, a 12-inch water main ruptured under the street at the intersection of North Akard and Ross Avenue. "It buckled the street, it flipped a car up onto the sidewalk, and Akard, Ervay and San Jacinto looked like rivers," Morey says. The deluge also sopped the ground and drained into the subterranean restaurant, spilling some 5 million gallons of municipal water through the ceiling, down the walls and out onto the patio. "I had two waterfalls that day," quips Morey, making reference to the decorative waterfall on his subterranean patio. Morey says he and Dakota's owner Lincoln Restaurant Group have up to now been unable to assess the damage from the gush. "The restaurant's still drying out," he explains. But Morey insists Dakota's will reopen by October 15, possibly with a refreshed interior--and less starch.

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Former Christian Brothers monk and founder of Silver Oak Wine Cellars Justin Meyer died earlier this month of a heart attack while vacationing near Lake Tahoe. He was 63. Meyer was a high school teacher for Christian Brothers order before he was assigned to work as a winemaker at their winery in Napa. He left the order in 1972 and founded Silver Oak with Colorado oilman Ray Duncan. Over the next three decades the pair exclusively produced Cabernet Sauvignon (Alexander Valley, Napa Valley, Bonny's Vineyard), and the lauded Silver Oak label is among the most posh entries on Dallas wine lists. In late 2000, Meyer sold his half interest in the winery to Duncan for a reported $120 million, giving himself the Silver Oak title of "consulting taster." At the time of his death Meyer was developing Meyer Family Cellars in California's Mendocino County, an operation specializing in port...Teetotaling will not reach epidemic proportions, at least if men have anything to say about it. A recent Gallup Poll shows that the number of admitted drinkers in America stands at 66 percent, with 72 percent of men saying they belt a quencher compared with 60 percent of women. The survey also shows that 27 percent of men drink every day, while only 10 percent of women exhibit such discipline. Yet these women appear to be more sophisticated. Nearly half of all women surveyed prefer wine when they drink, while 60 percent of men prefer beer. But all that proves is it's hard to work a corkscrew while driving a remote.