Best Liquor Store 2007 | Sigel's Fine Wines and Great Spirits | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
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Best Liquor Store

Sigel's Fine Wines and Great Spirits

Quick quiz: Would you rather have to choose a good, reasonably priced bottle of wine, or overhaul the engine in your car? Yeah, we'd go with the engine overhaul too, and we know precisely dick about motors. Why, oh why, does buying a bottle of fermented grape juice have to be such a royal pain? We just want to bring a nice gift to a dinner party without breaking the bank or facing those awkward, wooden smiles when we hand our more knowledgeable hosts something they wouldn't wash their feet with. We don't have an effin' enology degree. We don't want to know the DNA sequence of the variety of grape we're drinking. We just want to get out of the store without spending a fortune or having the clerk laughing behind our backs. That's why we shop Sigel's—not the huge variety of wines and spirits in every price range, and not the huge cases of cold beer. We go there because they have very nice people who will guide wine idiots to a reasonable bottle, without leaving you feeling like you've just been pantsed.

Best Men's Clothing Store

REI

Suits? What do we know about suits? A week's worth of work clothes around this joint consists of two pairs of jeans, five T-shirts and a pair of flip-flops. Sometimes, though, the missus insists we look less like the reprobate we are. For funereal and wedding gear (same diff), you got your mall. For casual (read: everything else), we shop REI's racks of Columbia Sportswear, North Face and their own comfortable, cottony house brand. Natural and high-tech fibers, plenty of cargo pants and shirts with big, big pockets, fit for casual Friday at the office or hitting the trail—because we're men, dammit, and you just never know when you might have to tear off and answer the call of the wild, all while hauling your BlackBerry, encased in sweat-wicking synthetic linen. Our fave? The REI Adventure Pants, because there's always an adventure in our pants.

Best Mid-Century Comeback

Pop Logic

About two years ago, those of us who dug the mid-century décor of Eames, Stow Davis, Miller and Dunbar had a place to go for a much-needed chair, side table or console record player. The place was Metro Retro in Lakewood, with Andrea Jennings on hand and on the lookout for anything Eisenhower-era. Then she closed up shop, and we somehow found ourselves stranded styleless with a futon and a cinderblock bookshelf. Well, Jennings is back, this time in a smaller storefront on Lower Greenville. She's got a fresh stock of vintage pieces (selling quickly) and goofy gift items that are technically modern but with a wink at the past: Forbidden Planet journals, B-movie DVDs, pet-related funnies and cocktail accessories pepper the 1950s to 1970s furniture and wearables. Jennings is still settling into the new locale, unloading more and more every time we've visited, but the old Metro Retro popcorn machine has made an appearance—a sign that all is well in this '50s haven.

Best Money Man

James Lehman, CRPC

Are you contributing what you should to your 401K? Are you a good candidate for investing in a mutual fund, or should you have a Roth IRA? What goals do you have in terms of retirement income? All of these questions can be mind-boggling. Hell, on what we make, they may not even make sense, but James Lehman can help put it all into perspective. One meeting with the man (you'll be coached on what info to bring beforehand, fret not) puts your mind at ease when it comes to planning for that small business, college fund for the kids, a home in the country or whatever you have your heart set on years, or even decades, down the road. Lehman is a master at explaining in layman's terms what a few dollars squirreled away now can do for you later. This guy is money, man.

Best New Furniture Store

West Elm

If chintz makes you cringe and fringe makes you break out in a sweat, the clean lines of affordable furniture at West Elm will make you jump with joy. The first West Elm in the Dallas area—and only the second in Texas—the airy Mockingbird Station store makes furniture shops offering the overstuffed and multipillowed sofas that are so popular in Dallas seem fusty and old-fashioned. West Elm's upholstered furniture comes in leather and solid fabrics to provide a backdrop for sculptural tables, bookshelves and storage pieces in wood, steel and laminate. The look is mid-century modern meets second-millennium luxury. Sofas and modular seating range from $749 to $2,000. West Elm also specializes in practical but cool home office furniture—never easy to find. Then there's that behind-the-scene stuff: closet organization, office storage and "spa storage" in solid teak. Spa storage...who knew that was a category of case goods? The translation: "a place to keep your towels and soap in the bathroom." All that simplicity can get a tad boring, so West Elm also has a spattering of what might be called '50s Follies, such as cascading capiz shell lamps, sunburst wall mirrors and clocks, and hanging squares of stainless steel which can be linked as a room divider. Even though she might have looked prim and proper, June Cleaver wasn't boring.

Best Nuthouse

Wild Birds Unlimited

We're complete birding novices, but on a recent splurge we bought a couple of feeders, hoping to attract the little dinosaurs (read your science books, kids) to liven up the backyard. At Wild Birds Unlimited, they'll sell you bird-friendly feeders on poles that don't lean and hummingbird feeders that don't also summon every ant, bee and wasp in the county. The staff here doesn't just wing it—they know their merchandise and have tons of useful information about the feathered friends that live in our backyards. Got a pesky squirrel problem? Tired of invasive house sparrows taking over all your birdhouses? Bluejays not digging your nuts? You'll find your solutions here. Happy birding.

Best Oldies but Goodies

Lula B's Antique Mall

It's the store where Lucy Ricardo's furniture went for recycling. The 1950s and '60s couches, chairs and dinettes are just the beginning of the retro-coolness at this Lower Greenville shop. Lula B's also stocks antique and vintage dishes, knickknacks, toys, purses, paintings and costume jewelry. That big round blue velvet bed has David Lynch flair (with a dash of Hef). The bone-shaped coffee tables and oversized plastic sunglasses are way groovy in an Austin Powers-y way. Old high school jackets, funky uniforms and way-gone LPs can play to the kinkiest fantasy. Think you look cute in those white vinyl go-go boots? Live the dream, kitten.

Best Oral Surgeon

Craig Williams, DDS, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Say you find a dentist that you really dig (see above). Then said dentist says, "I'm going to refer you to an oral surgeon to have that removed." Panic attack? Not if the surgeon is Dr. Craig Williams. The docile gent carries on a family practice that's been around since 1897...and that's not a misprint. This family believes in teeth. Williams is swift, calming and, dare we say, paternal. He'll chat you up about Sorta's latest (giving full disclosure that his son's in the band) or he'll just ask about the book you have in your lap while he readies his saws and pliers (or something...we couldn't look). Pain management is a high priority to Williams and his staff. Since mouth surgery is a pain to start with, any additional anesthetics are welcomed.

Best Passport Office

Dallas County District Clerk

Dallas District Clerk Gary Fitzsimmons runs three passport offices, but we like the one downtown. If you have to run the gantlet of passport-getting, you get to see the rebuilt George L. Allen Courts Building, which is pretty nice for a gummint building. And this downtown office is staffed by senior employees who know what they're doing and are pleasant to deal with. We suspect that might be true at the other locations too; in East Dallas at 3443 St. Francis Ave. (214-321-3183) and in North Dallas at 10056 Marsh Lane, Suite 137 (214-904-3030). But downtown, Fitzsimmons tends to run a smart shop. And given the boondoggles travelers are having with securing passports right now (don't plan that honeymoon abroad till you have the blue booklet in hand, my friends), dealing with nice, smart people paid by our tax dollars is somehow reassuring.

Best Personal Injury Attorney

Joe Smith

After a bad auto accident, the last thing anyone wants is to worry about the insurance hounds, the medical records and anything else but healing. That's where personal injury law guru Joe Smith comes in. The jovial family man has a naturally comforting nature that instantly eases in stressful times. And here's something that proves he's a trustworthy soul: He'll tell you honestly if you don't need his services. Hand over your worries and concentrate on getting over that whiplash while Smith and his team tackle the bureaucracies and get you the settlement to pay the bills.

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