Best jazz club 2000 | Sambuca | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
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Best jazz club

Sambuca

No other jazz joint touches Sambuca in terms of atmosphere (which is pretty much what a jazz club is all about) and talent (which is everything else). It's dark, moody, and subtly lit, as if a fire were flickering somewhere underneath the floor; stepping into Sambuca is like walking into an underground jazz club in Paris in the 1940s, we imagine. While the "jazz" in some places is from the school of Kenny G, the lineup at Sambuca is the closest Dallas can get to Harlem in the '50s. OK, so that might be a bit of an exaggeration. But in comparison with everywhere else, Sambuca deserves the highest praise possible.

Best rock bar

The Rock,

We've given The Rock grief for years, but like it or not, it's as rock-and-roll as a bar can get without slipping into a pair of leather pants and a conch belt. (Find any video by The Cult, and you'll see what we're talking about.) The joint, dubbed by its owners "the rock 'n' roll palace of downtown Dallas," actually had to include "rock" in its name. Can you beat that? Actually, yes, but one look at the wait staff, tricked out in acid-washed jeans and feathered hair, and you'll have a few second thoughts. The bands that play there (ASKA, for one) are across-the-board bad, but maybe we're just jealous because they rock so hard. Nah, couldn't be. In all seriousness, if you want the rock, well, you want The Rock.

Best place to kick it with bikers

The Blue Goose

Chain-drive twin cams and fitments, fin area and piston cooling jets, crankcases, straight crank pins, bearing areas, reshaped combustion chambers, reworked exhaust, and intake ports and valves that optimize emissions efficiency and power output, single-fire ignition systems, glossy paint, and fast as hell. Pretty maids, all in a row. If these are a few of your favorite things, take a trip to Lower Greenville on any given Sunday. It's like bedlam when the bikers gun their hogs, so this is no place for the weak.

Best urban street-side patio dining

Thai Soon

Sitting on Thai Soon's patio, it's hard to believe that the traffic on Greenville is just a few feet away. It's really quiet. Well, it's more quiet than you'd expect when you're close enough to read the odometers on slow-moving cars. A lattice covered in vines and plants surrounds the patio, shading it from the sun. Flowers and other stretching plants are nestled into the walls with birds occasionally dropping by to snatch up rice and egg-roll crumbs. The stone benches and tables stay cool in the afternoon, but the curry, rice, and noodle dishes are served hot and fresh.

Best Place to Jog

White Rock Lake

When we arrived in town two decades ago, way back when Reunion had rowdies and there were more Von Erichs alive than dead, a lifelong resident told us that the only naturally beautiful thing in Dallas was White Rock Lake. We had two reactions to this statement: 1. Does this mean that Bambi Woods--who played the lead cheerleader in Debbie Does Dallas--really doesn't live here? and 2. You've gotta be kidding. Now we realize he was correct. There are topographically beautiful areas of town (Oak Cliff), impressive sights to see (uh, give us a minute...) and all that, but if you want to have a true at-one-with-nature experience, you must circle White Rock Lake. Preferably in jogging shorts, not in a car. Go at sunrise--sunset is a cluster-run of joggers and bikers--and talk to your inner child amid the dew, the view, and the hotties running next to you.

Best honky tonk

Country 2000

Big hats, big belt buckles, big hair, and boots galore. A whole lot of dancing goes on at this multilevel home of progressive country music (hint: nonalcoholic beer is available, and none of it is flavored with Merle or Loretta's tears). Although the bar stays busy, the main order of business is to boot and scoot, then dance some more, right up until 45 minutes before closing time, when the music switches to C&W's oldies but goodies. Headline-name bands take the stage regularly. Wednesday is Ladies Night, and there are dance lessons on Sundays. This place is Yuppie cowboy and cowgirl heaven.

Best Bowling Alley

AMF Richardson Lanes

There's nothing wrong with some of the bigger alleys, like Don Carter's West or Showplace Lanes in Garland, but we think AMF Richardson offers the best of both worlds. We grew up next-door to a small bowling alley in Okie-homa, and we like an alley to be fewer than 50 lanes, which AMF is. But we also like some of the updates the place has made to its lanes, its gameroom, the billiards area, and so on. For the kids, it offers Xtreme bowling on weekends (music, disco ball, etc.) and plain ol' pitchers of beer, smoke, and big shiny balls during the week. Now, if we could just break 150...

Best bar name

The now-defunct Beer Goggles in Deep Ellum

You've got to hand it to the frat-boy entrepreneurs behind the bar that, for a few months at least, occupied the space that once housed the Orbit Room. Rarely, if ever, has a drinking establishment cut so quickly to the chase. With such a can't-miss name, we can't believe Beer Goggles, you know, missed. They should have just named it Roofies or Date Rapists. We're sure they considered it.

Best piano bar

After Dark

This little bar tucked away in a strip mall is a real charmer. Its atmosphere is more like a dim, elegant, quietly chatty bar in New York than anything else you'd find in Dallas, and we mean that in a nice way. Owners Bradley Johnson and Andy Krumm opened this establishment on April 7 of this year, and already it's become one of the favorite watering holes of the Oak Lawn set. Serious money was spent on the interiors, furniture, and, most especially, the lighting (which makes everyone look no older than 30!). It has a valet parking service to make parking a little easier for its patrons. But the real reason that people keep coming back is the fantastic music they play seven nights a week till 2 a.m. The singers (including veteran favorites Linda Petty and Sandra Kaye) and musicians playing in this tiny bar keep the atmosphere lively but intimate.

Best place to throw a bridal shower

S&S Tea Room

We don't know about you, but we're tired of seeing groups of women stagger out of bars with the girl in the center wearing a sweater full of condoms. Isn't there a more tasteful way to celebrate the upcoming nuptials of a friend than making her feel like a hooker? The groom gets his fill of those at his party. Fortunately, there are alternatives for observing this happy event. The S&S Tea Room in Inwood Village is a nice restaurant serving breakfast and dinner. It also makes a lovely location for women to get together and celebrate the upcoming joy of their soon-to-be-married friend. Save the cheap Greenville Avenue bars for after the divorce.

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