Copper Spur Saloon

Pity the band that competes for patrons’ attention against the raucous games of darts, shuffleboard, pool, cards and shit-talking on a Saturday night at the Copper Spur Saloon–featured in “Dallas’s Most Authentic Dive Bars”. It’s a tough crowd, but maybe they’re just following the lead of owner Nell Scarborough, a stocky gray-haired woman whose quick movements belie her years. She watches over her customers like a mother whose children long ago stopped disappointing her and have since become a source of amusement. The place is hidden behind a Tejano club in a potholed parking lot across from Keller’s on Northwest Highway. But there’s no hiding the beer–cold, cheap and American–or the constant din of clinking bottles pounding against tabletops or shattering in trash cans. Of course, with happy hour prices including $3 wells till midnight on some nights, the harder stuff isn’t an uncommon sight. It’s the kind of place best enjoyed with a group of drinkers who realize that mechanical bulls are for tourists.