Best Museum for Non-Art Purposes 2022 | Dallas Contemporary | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
Navigation
Jonathan Rizzo

This non-collecting art museum has built a reputation for its edgy, engaging programming (up now: Shephard Fairey's first-ever solo Texas show). Under the leadership of executive director Carolina Alvarez Mathies, the Contemporary has also become the place to take a sound bath, shop local artisans, catch a live DJ set and even get a mini tattoo. The DC Summer Series of events has been a wild success among the young and cultured, so here's hoping there are more artful parties on the fall calendar to keep those weekends interesting.

Mutual aid group Say It With Your Chest DTX isn't wishing for change. It's on the frontlines demanding it. Led by Black women, Say It With Your Chest is tirelessly putting in the work to change the political and social climate in Dallas by developing relationships with the homeless, providing them laundry services and gathering bodies to hinder the city from sweeping away encampments. For a year, Say It With Your Chest has built a community and rapport with the houseless. Through grassroots efforts, the group has fed the hungry, provided water to those living in record heat and advocated for the houseless when policies have displaced the vulnerable.

It seems it was just yesterday that JD Beck was a 13-year-old drummer running around Deep Ellum, sitting in as the city's most seasoned players took him under their wings. A couple of years later, Beck met his musical match in fellow savant DOMI, a French-born pianist three years his senior. After meeting at a show, she flew to Dallas to play an Erykah Badu concert with Beck. That's when the wunderkindred spirits formed an instrumental duo that caught the attention of Anderson .Paak. After making a tsunami of a splash online, the two finally released Not Tight, an actually tight jazz record that is not easy-listening. This is for the music nerds, for the obsessive listeners who want to deconstruct the rhythmic, mathematical journey taken by a collection of notes, and for those who want to ponder the mastery of Beck's time. It also includes vocals by .Paak himself. It's a showing of virtuosity that's inspired by video games, funk and a mutual respect among high players.

Each of Axios Dallas' newsletter writers is a force to be reckoned with. Using the signature Axios smart brevity style, they deliver the latest North Texas news in a personable, easy-to-digest way. In the newsletter's bullet point format, the trio of writers strikes a happy balance of too-big-to-miss headlines and under-the-radar stories. They even give the Observer an occasional shout-out in their coverage, for which we're always grateful. Be sure to read until the very end to catch Mike, Tasha and Naheed's picks, which may include book and margarita recommendations, depending on the day.

Patrick Williams

It'll Do has found a spot in our Best Of Dallas issues a few times, but the club just keeps demanding our attention. For one, it's sort of a timeless space where the decor and light-up dance floor transport you to another era, while the club music keeps you well in the present day. Think of everything you hate about modern clubs: the velvet-roped douchiness, the showy bottle service and the guy at the door assessing your worth through a full body scan. You won't find that at It'll Do. You will get dance music with touring big-name DJs and local favorites such as resident DJ Red Eye. But it's the crowd that most makes us want to move uncontrollably. The place seems to attract the most welcoming crowd of clubgoers, who actually make you happy to be among people. A miracle.

Best North Texas-Based True Crime Show

Candy

One of Hulu's most binge-worthy shows this year takes place in the Dallas suburb of Wylie. Candy is based on the true-crime tale of Candy Montgomery, who was arrested, charged and later acquitted of the 1980 ax murder of her neighbor and friend. Executive producer Jessica Biel also stars in the miniseries, even doing a decent job of adopting a Texas drawl. She shines as the titular character, acting the part of a busy mom, suburban housewife, devout churchgoer and alleged murderer. There are scores of Hollywood renditions of small-town Texas, but Candy is one of the few that actually gets it right.

There are plenty of local spots in Dallas where skaters can pay to get in and do their thing: busting their asses or landing cool tricks. But the city has always lacked a substantial public skate park, something neighboring cities like Lewisville, Plano, Frisco, The Colony and others have had for some time now. The one public skatepark in the city, St. Francis in East Dallas, isn't big enough or decked out enough to serve the city's skateboarding needs. But, a new spot is in the works. Approved by Dallas voters in 2017, the city is throwing some $4 million into a public skate park near DART's Bachman Station at Bachman Lake. Latest estimates put the park at between 30,000 and 75,000 square feet. It could open as early as this year.

Peter Larsen

America has its fair share of uber-rich dudes, and Texas has even attracted a couple of recent arrivals (see: Elon Musk). But not everyone who's disgustingly wealthy shares the love as well as Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks owner who's worth an estimated $4.7 billion. Earlier this year, he launched an online pharmacy to provide medication at a fraction of the usual price. One drug that treats leukemia, for instance, often has a monthly cost of $9,500. Under Cuban's pharmacy, it drops to a mere $47. Thank you very much, Mark, for making our existence in this late-stage capitalistic hellhole slightly more palatable.

DFW has an Olympic-sized pool of standout photographers for every occasion: concert, cityscapes, photojournalists, bridal, boudoir, you name it. But we love an artistic photographer and especially love the work of Hannah Dimmit, whose motel-colored palette of glossy kitsch shines like the plastic on a newly shipped Barbie. The North Texas photographer works on commercial commissions and brings her candied vision to the still-life advertising of food products. But it's her Instagram work that makes us want to follow her high-pigment rainbow to wherever it leads. Dimmit's images conjure a playful world starring women, wrapped in Lily Allen's brand of trailer-chic, disco, technicolor glitz.

Mike Brooks

If you like to sing karaoke, drink cold beer, scarf down some grub and listen to honky-tonk tunes all while pretending to be a cowboy for the night, then boy do we have the place for you. The Neon Cowboy, which regularly hosts country acts, is the perfect spot to get your urban cowboy on in Dallas. The place has a dance floor, a music stage, a restaurant and a full-service bar. There are also regularly held karaoke nights, so dust off your spurs, warm up your vocal cords and try to remember the lyrics to that one Garth Brooks song that you swore you never liked when you were a kid.

Best Of Dallas®

Best Of