Best Place for Tricks and Treats 2007 | Queen of Hearts Costume and Magic Shop | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
Navigation
Support Us
Search

Best Place for Tricks and Treats

Queen of Hearts Costume and Magic Shop

Don't be that guy at Halloween parties who staples condoms to his T-shirt and calls himself a condom tree. Get a real costume this year, and there's no better place to buy or rent your getup than Queen of Hearts in downtown Plano. The shop's been around since 1982, and it's still the best spot in town to find unique, high-quality costumes, as well as all the accessories you'll need to complete your look. Already got your Halloween costume this year? Queen of Hearts has you covered for the rest of the year, too, with Santa and Easter bunny suits, Mardi Gras gear and the perfect duds for the Renaissance Festival, if that's your thing. They also have a complete magic shop and offer lessons for all ages with their staff of professional magicians. But please, for everyone's sake, keep your new "vanishing lit torch" trick away from the office break room.

Best Place to Bring the Outdoors In

Napa Home

The first things you see when you walk in Napa Home are Napoleon and Little Bean, two white French bulldogs whose sweet faces and ovoid bodies at complete and utter rest fit with the "simple pleasures for the home and palate" theme of the shop. Napa Home specializes in home accents of natural objects like seashells, fossils, strange pods, odd pinecones and vessels made of turned wood or tortoise-colored glass. The sensual shapes make you want to run your hands over everything. The look is comfortable but also very modern and sleek. It's a great place to shop for gifts for newlyweds who appreciate the out-of-the-ordinary salad bowls, salt and pepper shakers and servers such as Bandeja Laurel trays, shaped like palm leaves and made of shiny alpaca metal and cow horn (naturally shed, of course). Napa Home is also a great place for inspiration. You start to see possibilities in your own backyard. Those giant green bois d'arc "horse apples" (artificial ones are sold at Napa Home) would look good in a large Chinese bowl. The river rocks down by the creek could fill a glass cylinder. Line up a simple display of pomegranates on a fireplace mantel. It's nice to be reminded that some of the most beautiful things in the world don't cost more than $1.98 a pound.

Best Place to Cover Your Butt

The Market at LFT

Buying Levi's is a no-brainer. But if you want hip denim hugging your hips—the kind you could wear to the Ghostbar atop the nearby W Hotel—the place to go is LFT (Lifestyle Fashion Terminal), a "concept" shop at Victory Park: 30,000 cavernous square feet with areas dedicated to edgy fashion lines by various designers and a "jeans carousel" similar to the legendary Fred Segal store in Los Angeles. The premium-priced jeans like Hudson, Ksubi and J Brand spin around and around on a contraption you'd find at the dry cleaners, so there's no digging through piles for the perfect pair. Chip and Pepper, one of the featured design lines, has its own space filled with cool jeans. Check out the plastic bins with vintage-look Ts. But don't stop with the jeans. LFT is a great place to scout for a new LBD, that other kind of Ghostbar wear: a tragically hip little black dress. (Anyone who says you need just one LBD is a liar.) Serious fashionistas—you know who you are—should rethink those plans to make a binge shopping trip to New York and drop the airfare on a spree at LFT. It's the perfect cure for the North Dallas mall blues.

Best Place to Get Nailed

Hollywood Nails & Spa

Not every woman can afford a Marc Jacobs bag or red-soled Christian Louboutins. (Especially not women who write for the local alt-weekly. But we can dream, right?) What most of us can scrape together the cash for is a favorite spa service. For us, it's a pedicure. And we love the ones at Hollywood Nails & Spa. The actual pedicure part is great, but what we truly adore are the extras such as the foot and calf massage, salt scrub, hot towel wrap and cushy massage chairs. Oh, and did we mention the bar? Have a glass of wine or a beer while you're being massaged, exfoliated, buffed and polished. And this isn't just girly-girl time. Plenty of suits take off their wingtips to let their toesies be pampered here. Hoof it here immediately.

Best Place to Go Before You See Iron Man Next Year

Titan Comics

Not so long ago we were talking to an out-of-town friend who's way into comics, by which we mean he writes and draws a pretty well-known title, so he's actually in comics. We got to talking about comic shops when we mentioned to our friend, "Actually, we're going to Titan today to pick it up." Wait, said our friend. "That's right, you're in Dallas you lucky bastard. I hear that place is amazing." Turns out, as much as we love the all-comics comic store—no action figures, only new titles and back issues lovingly displayed in bagged-and-boarded sleeves placed in long white cardboard boxes—it's got quite the national rep to go along with its copious Best of Dallas awards. Three times, in fact, Jeremy Shorr's Titan Comics near Bachman Lake has been a national finalist for the Will Eisner Spirit of Retailing award presented to the best comics shop in all the land—an honor presented each year at the freaks and geeks' spectacular-spectacular, the San Diego Comic-Con. And, technically, the place does sell more than comics. If you need a Batman sculpture or a cool painted reproduction of a 1940s cover, Shorr also has you covered. Fact is, the place is a cross between a retailer and an art gallery. Yeah, we know—dorks, right?

Best Place to Make an Entrance

Centennial Medical Center

Giving birth is a bitch. Pain, screaming, pushing, crying—and that's just what the fathers go through. Try being a new mom getting that fat little human being out of you-know-where in something even close to a peaceful environment. It's surprising what a difference little things make in this high-stress situation. Centennial Medical Center goes the distance to turn the birthing process into a pleasant, calm experience. Chances are, if you're giving birth here, you'll get your own room, but that's not even the best part. Parents of newborns are treated to a gourmet meal during their stay, courtesy of the hospital's chef. It's a delicious way to celebrate the family's newest mouth to feed.

Best Place to Wig Out

Wig Paradise

Nestled in a narrow nook at Wynnewood Village Shopping Center is one of the hottest hairgoods happenings in the wild and woolly wig scene of Dallas. Didn't think there was a wig scene? Dallas is home to more than 30 specialized wig stores. Add beauty supply businesses that sell wigs and the number rises into the hundreds. What sets Wig Paradise apart? Customer service. Patrons who walk through the doors are immediately greeted by a friendly and attentive staff that make it their mission to help you choose the wig best suited to your needs. Experienced technicians are on hand to cut, trim, thin and style your wig right there, right then. The stock is not limited to full cap wigs, but also includes falls, pieces, braids, wiglets, puffs, clip-in hair extensions and other creative hair solutions available in both synthetic fibers and human hair. Look for staffers Linda or Shannon to give you advice and a true analysis of what looks best on you. It could be the difference between looking like a million bucks—and looking like you've got a wig on your head.

Best Poop & Worms

Rabbit Hill Farm

Among environment-conscious gardeners, "locally grown" is the hot trend. Buying local products supports nearby growers and manufacturers, boosts the local economy and, for the consumer, means fresher items that have spent less time in a truck and endured fewer preservative processes. For many backyard gardeners, locally grown means your very own veg patch outside the back door. Rabbit Hill Farm, whose products are sold in a number of gardening stores hereabouts, is based in Corsicana, where they give a crap about organic gardening—rabbit crap, to be specific, which is rich in nitrogen and doesn't need composting like other manures. They also sell worm castings, called "black gold" and highly valued as a soil amendment. Rabbit Hill Farm uses both to blend special gardening products such as Bunny Trails and Native Texas Plant Food. If you want to try your own hand at vermicomposting (using a bin of worms to break down kitchen and yard waste), order some of their red wrigglers. Appropriate somehow to receive a wriggly ball of worms by snail mail.

Best Prezzies

House Of Dang

A place as esoteric and edgy as the House of Dang really shouldn't be quite so reliable, but there's just no denying it. Whether it's Mom's birthday, your nephew's bar mitzvah or a just-for-the-hell-of-it present for a down-in-the-dumps friend, dang, this house has the perfect thing. For Mom, how about a one-of-a-kind coin purse made from vintage fabric? And that nephew would be down for a big red pillow with a screen-printed monster face, right? The list goes on, from cuddly onesies for babies to funky-fun handmade jewelry. The House of Dang features affordable, high-quality everything for anyone. Best of all, most of their merch is locally made, so you know you're giving one of your neighbors the gift of steady employment.

Best Saltwater Swap

Dallas/Fort Worth Marine Aquarium Society

Bubble, bubble, there's toil and trouble setting up a 200-gallon saltwater aquarium on your own. If you're determined to do it, pay a visit to the Buy and Sell forums on the Web site of the Dallas/Fort Worth Marine Aquarium Society. You'll meet fellow hobbyists who can outfit you with price-savvy used equipment and stock, from tank to Tonga branch and metal halides to Montipora, often at 50 percent (or less) of the cost of a new item. And considering aquarists' love of upgrading and the large membership of the forums, you're likely to find that the item you want (or someone who wants to buy your item) is just a short swimming distance away.

Best Of Dallas®

Best Of

Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our terms of use, our cookies policy, and our privacy policy The Dallas Observer may earn a portion of sales from products & services purchased through links on our site from our affiliate partners. ©2024 Dallas Observer, LP. All rights reserved.
Do Not Sell or Share My Information
Powered By Foundation