Best Jazz Club 2012 | Sandaga 813 | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
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Best Jazz Club

Sandaga 813

Jazz fans in Dallas are grown folks. They have a certain refined taste in art and music that can't be found in many local music clubs. Also, they go to bed at a reasonable time on weeknights. Sandaga 813 understands this, which is why the eclectic space in Exposition Park has the feel of a low-lit urban art gallery. And when you get there at 8 p.m. on a Tuesday, you can expect Shelley Carrol and his impressive band have already had their first downbeat. Careful, though. The music and the atmosphere are so good that you're likely to stay up way past your bedtime.

Best Patio

The Foundry

It's one thing when a bar has a nice patio, but Oak Cliff's The Foundry has a massive patio. The sprawling yard is enclosed on one side by several boxcars filled with comfortable chairs and tables. On one end is the coolest-looking stage in Dallas (constructed of more than 600 wood pallets), and next to it is a building that houses the bar. Even that feels like it's outdoors thanks to massive garage doors that remain open during business hours. And if patrons get hungry, Chicken Scratch is on one end of the campus. It's a kid-friendly, pet-friendly bar with plenty of space for everyone.

Best Bar Music

Strangeways

It's hard not to feel as though you're walking into a Manchester pub when you step foot into the East Dallas bar Strangeways. The exposed concrete walls and wooden rafters lend to the industrial British atmosphere, but what really sets the mood is the music that breathes life into the gritty space. An impressive mix of The Smiths, New Order, Joy Division, The Jam and others blast from the speakers located above the beer taps. The drinks are strong at Strangeways, but few things are more intoxicating than when a good bar plays good music.

Best Bar for Power Ballad Fans

Liquid Zoo

Liquid Zoo owner Nell Scarborough can hardly hold a conversation without humming along to whatever power ballad is playing in her East Dallas bar. She's not the only one. The room is filled with Richard Marx fans, who, according to the genuine looks on their faces as they sing along, "will be right here waiting for you." The thing is, the music coupled with Liquid Zoo's atmosphere actually makes sense. In fact, if you hang out there long enough, you might find yourself on stage doing karaoke to Michael Bolton's version of "When A Man Loves A Woman."

Best Sign Denton is Growing Up

Paschall Bar

Denton's University of North Texas campus releases thousands of graduates into the real world each year. It's expected that they'll take their education and move away to another, bigger city. Such is not the case in Denton, where many graduates have been hanging around the town like an adult son crashing at his parents' house for a few years too many. Midlake, the enterprising band composed of UNT graduates, has created Paschall Bar for the older, more discerning Denton resident. The bartenders — often traveling musicians between tours — are trained mixologists. As such, Paschall Bar serves up the best cocktails on that side of the county line.

  • 122 N. Locust St., Denton, 76201 Map

Best Dance Club

Beauty Bar

Beauty Bar is such a great dance club because it hosts some of the area's best DJs. Sober's Thursday night residency has become a hipster hotspot, where his mix of old-school hip-hop and indie rock packs an interesting mix of party people onto the small dance floor each week. It's a place that's saturated with glamour, from the vintage mirrors to the art deco lamps that hang over the bar, which patrons are lucky to reach as the crowd surges throughout the night. They ask you to check any pretentiousness at the velvet rope out front. At Beauty Bar, it's all about having fun.

Best Dive Bar

Club Schmitz

There aren't too many wholesome hangouts amongst the strip joints in far Northwest Dallas anymore, save for one place that has been in business since 1946. The family-owned Club Schmitz is the quintessential Dallas dive bar. Very little about the place detracts from its kitschy charm. The wood-paneled walls are covered with yellowed Budweiser displays that were hung there when they were new. The shuffleboard table is one of the most well-seasoned in the area. As the woman behind the bar will tell you as she serves a greasy, mustard-tinged burger and a beer in a plastic cup, people have been coming here since they were kids and now they bring their kids. The place has become a family tradition.

Best Mixology Bar

The Cedars Social

Go up to any bartender at The Cedars Social and order a Ramos Gin Fizz, one of the most complicated drinks in the cocktail canon. They won't even need to refer to a recipe. Instead, they'll build the drink straight from memory. Same goes for the Old Fashioned, which many on The Cedars Social staff can perfect while holding a leisurely conversation with a patron. That's because the bartenders at Cedars Social are a different breed. Their memories are infused with cocktail history, and should anyone on either side of the bar forget it, the bar holds up a stack of cocktail books the bartenders refer to as bibles.

Best Pop-Up Bar

All Of Them

When The Cedars Social's head barman Michael Martensen quietly opened the doors to Bar 828 in Oak Cliff, a charity-benefiting pop-up bar in Oak Cliff, it was only a matter of minutes until the place was packed. Martensen brought in the area's top bartenders to mix drinks. It was so popular that only a few months later he did the same thing in Deep Ellum, where Hid In popped up in Cane Roso's extra room. It was like a bartender's playground, where mixologists were able to get a little more adventurous than they would in their home bars.

Best Brewpub

Union Bear

It's not the biggest as far as brewpubs go, or at least doesn't have the brewing capacity of a Humperdink's, Gordon Biersch or BJ's. In fact, it only brews one beer at a time to complement its array of other fine ales and lagers. But brewing a new offering every week, this self-proclaimed "nanobrewery" makes up for its small output with creativity, offering amateur brewers the chance to collaborate on experimental batches. And even if one of them turns out to be a dud, there are always the dozens of other brews to choose from. Wine selection and food ain't half bad, either.

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