To think, Deep Ellum Blues has only been around a year and a half and has already positioned itself as the foremost source of blues in Dallas. What's even more amazing, though, is how subtle the new venue was in dominating the scene. There haven't been any super-huge festivals or expensive redesigns at the Deep Ellum club (unless you count painting the walls blue). It's a simple, clean building with fine sound and perhaps forgettable if not for the solid booking that fills the stage with the best in local blues five nights a week, from Lance Lopez to Texas Slim and from Jim Suhler and Monkey Beat to Elvis T. Busboy and the Blues Butchers. This is the best place in town to have the worst mood.

Readers' Pick
Hole in the Wall Gourmet 11654 Harry Hines Blvd. 972-247-2253

Cheapskate or nostalgic. Spendthrift or creative. Penny-pinching or innovative. No matter the motive--paying as little as possible on a date or looking for something out of the norm to do--the Lakewood Theater makes you look good. Movie tickets, depending on the night and the sponsor, cost a dollar or less. Popcorn also comes cheap. Drinks at the bar are on special. Basically, it's two tickets and two sets of snacks for less than the cost of a regular movie. Besides being budget-friendly, the screenings also give viewers the chance to see films on the big screen that they might not otherwise. From Scarface and Reservoir Dogs to Up in Smoke and Animal House, the Lakewood Theater's flicks are light on the wallet, heavy on the cool.

Sometimes you wanna go where everyone knows your name, and sometimes you just want to fade into the corner with your friends Jack, Jim and Jose. At The Grapevine, you can do either. Conversation is easy to find, but so is the enjoyment of sitting alone listening to everything from Marvin Gaye to ABBA to The Killers. OK, so The Grapevine isn't necessarily a gay bar; what it is, though, is an everyone bar. Gays, straightseveryone's welcome. A place where you can kick it on the patio with your boys and still hang with your girl and nobody bats an eye or feels uncomfortable. What The GV has managed to do is blur the line of gay/straight bar and answer the age-old question "Can't we all just get along?" Yes we can. No need to scream "we're here, we're queer." They already know, they just don't care. Welcome to the mainstream. Now give mama bourbon.

Readers' Pick
JR's Bar & Grill Dallas 3923 Cedar Springs Road 214-559-0650

For a while she was looking like scary old actress Norma Desmond, standing on a shabby staircase with a scowl on her puss. But a gorgeous facelift and chic makeover have turned Dallas' last movie palace, owned by Landmark Theatres, into a glamorous starlet. Interior designer Brooks Graham spoiled none of the Inwood's existing art deco details in adding cushy leather seats in the VIP area upstairs and installing a neat walkway between the intimate Inwood Lounge and the theater itself (OK to cart those cocktails over now, too). The Inwood once again is ready for her close-up.

Really, if you get drunk enough, you can get your groove on at most any nightlife spot in Dallas. That said, we'd much rather you take your drunk ass out of Taco Cabana (no, the salsa bar isn't a good place to strike up the Macarena) and shake your tailfeathers all the way to the Lizard Lounge, where dancing isn't just abundant--it's downright mandatory. What has set Lizard Lounge apart for years is its booking, with superstar DJs like Qbert, Mix Master Mike and Paul Oakenfold. In addition, Dallas' goth beauties still hold court on Thursday and Sunday nights for The Church, which means even pale, awkward dancers can throw on some leather and see what the fuss is about. But you might wanna change before heading to Taco C afterward.

Readers' Pick
Station 4 911 Cedar Springs Road 214-526-7171

You unsuccessfully begged your friends to accompany you to Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. You snuck into From Justin to Kelly to avoid the snicker of the guy at the ticket counter. You skipped a night at the bar to watch Boogeyman on DVD. We get it: You have a love affair with sucky movies. It's not a crime, although there are some at the Observer who would arrest you if they could. Our point is that you shouldn't be ashamed to see a formulaic stinker on the big screen. And if you are, go to the lowest-key theater in Dallas, AMC Glen Lakes. It's clean, convenient and, most of the time, empty. You won't run into anyone you know, and you can enjoy that new Ashlee Simpson movie in peace. And, for the record, From Justin to Kelly was so bad that it was good.

If you're a social misfit in Dallas, minc opens its arms to you, baby. The Exposition Park hotspot, which has been mislabeled a gay club for a while, has recently broadened its booking horizons to remind men and women, gay and straight, black and white and tall and short that all nightlife possibilities are up for grabs at one convenient location. From dance theme nights to live rock bands and everything in between, not to mention hot parties hosted by the likes of Erykah Badu and quality DJs such as The Got House Crew and DJ Red Eye running the boards throughout the week, minc is establishing itself not as a question mark in Dallas nightlife but as an exclamation point.

Readers' Pick
Lizard Lounge 2424 Swiss Ave. 214-826-4768

Starting in March at the WaterTower Theatre in Addison and extending into late October at the Samuell Grand Amphitheatre, the Shakespeare Festival of Dallas is inching toward becoming what everybody wishes it could be--a year-round celebration of Elizabethan theater. But the two best months, for our money, are still June and July, when the festival is doing hard-core Bard for the masses out on the blankets in the grass at Samuell Grand Park in East Dallas. Acting, directing and all-around production values in recent years have been of ever better quality. And there's nothing better, when the sun finally falls on a white-hot Dallas summer day, than a good bottle of wine, a few friends and The Winter's Tale.

With such great booking, the Gypsy Tea Room doesn't really need to pander to the local scene. The Deep Ellum mainstay's larger ballroom is the perfect mid-level venue for touring acts such as Ryan Adams, The Roots and Robert Plant, who want to sell a thousand tickets and still consider their concerts "intimate," while the smaller "tea room" gives up-and-coming indie stars like The Raveonettes, Aesop Rock and Death From Above 1979 plenty of space along with a quality sound system. Those national shows could pay the bills by themselves, but it's the club's concessions to local promotions, like monthly Final Friday hip-hop events and Spune Productions' singer-songwriter socials, that prove the club isn't just looking to make a buck. These Gypsies care about the scene. No sound system or sightline can top that fact.

Readers' Pick
Gypsy Tea Room

Once again, it's all about the all-gay all-the-time Uptown Players. With this summer's sold-out run of Del Shores' Southern Baptist Sissies, this theater group earned enough money (and a little more) to pay off its debts and fund the rest of its season. That's how strong the following has become for this troupe, whose mission is to do theater that reflects "contemporary and alternative lifestyle themes." Attracting the top actors and directors in town, Uptown has such a good reputation that out-of-town playwrights often fly in to see productions of their plays--and end up telling Uptown producers Jeff Rane and Craig Lynch that their little company has outdone the New York or L.A. versions. Andrew Lippa came in to check out The Wild Party. Playwright Shores was so impressed with their staging of Sissies that he promptly hired one of the actors, Emerson Collins, to take over a main role in the Los Angeles revival in 2006. Founded in 2001, Uptown Players get more ambitious every season.

Readers' Pick
Uptown Players