54 September 21 - 27, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER contents | shopping & services | Arts & entertAinment | Food & drink | sports & recreAtion Best Dance Company Very Good Dance Theatre Attending the theater can heighten emotions, but should one expect to laugh, cry and dance? Very Good Dance Theatre has a magical way of creating space for audience members to become participants through immersive performances that have a wide range of content. It could be the intimate scenes from collaborative works with movement monologues that will make you weep or The Annual Gay Show, a production that is absolutely wild, challenging the perceptions of what dance should be and redefining what it means to be “good.” Fortunately, that can include everything from bondage to ritualistic poetry that ends in a sparkle party disco. Absolutely wild, absolutely profound, absolutely perfect. Event locations vary verygooddt.com Best Dive Bar One Nostalgia Tavern This joint is tucked into a lot next to a tire shop, and the only evidence of life after dark is a dimly lit sign that reads, “Cocktails and Dancing,” shining like a dive bar beacon. It’s everything you could possibly want in a dive: carpeted floors, a jukebox, a shuffleboard table along the wall and the light of the neon moon glowing from every fixture. “It’s just a neighborhood little fun spot,” owner Kent Smith, who can usually be found in his corner bar spot, told WFAA in 2017. No sports, no fuss, and they don’t put up with assholes. Most nights the bar serves as a bumping karaoke spot with classic movies playing on the television screens. It’s a perfect place for a shot and a beer, cocktails, dancing and a night you may not remember. 6521 Abrams Road 214-348-8407 Best Country Bar The Wounded Ostrich Before the pandemic, Deep Ellum had become a certified country gold hot spot, but in the years since, honky-tonkin’ spots such as Mama Tried and Blue Light Dallas have blown away like tumbleweed in a desert ghost town. The 2022 arrival of the Wounded Ostrich on Main Street injected some twang back into town, with a steady stream of live country and folk talent as well as pool, darts and cocktails you can (literally) buy and drink by the bucket. If alcohol served in buckets isn’t country, what is? 2815 Main St. woundedostrich.com Best Hip-Hop cluB Headquarters From Lil Wayne to Summer Walker to Gucci Mane, Headquarters has kept its focus on providing partygoers with the ultimate nightlife experience by the world’s biggest stars. Imagine enjoying great drinks at great prices or VIP bottle service around the most stylish people with your favorite celebrity performing right next to you between sets by the city’s best DJs. Toss in a reasonable cover charge and more celebrities ready to party on any Friday and Saturday night. The line that always stretches around the building includes people from all over the world who have heard about the nightclub either through word-of-mouth or through 96.8 million hashtags on TikTok, The exquisitely spacious Chris Poux-owned nightclub gives you a night you will love to remember over and over again. Everybody is somebody at Headquarters. 11035 Ables Lane 496-372-0560 Best health insta-fluencer Raven Ross When Love Is Blind came to Dallas for its third season, we were beyond pumped. A binge-worthy reality show featuring some of the hottest singles Big D has to offer? Sign us up. But one contestant especially stood out thanks to her love of fitness and clean eating: Raven Ross. We’ve been following Ross’ posts on Instagram, and her down-to-earth, lighthearted approach to getting healthy has us feeling like we can take on the world. Ross is the positive inspiration that we’ve needed to finally get our asses to the Pilates studio. @pilatesbodybyraven Best Rooftop Bar HG Sply Co. HG Sply Co. has good eats and drinks and a great space to enjoy it all. The rooftop patio at this cool spot offers comfortable seating and a great view of bustling Lower Greenville. With 9,000 square feet of space, it has more than enough room to spread out and take in this vibrant piece of Dallas. Stylish wooden furniture and string lights overhead give off the perfect rustic vibe for you and your friends to sit back and get cozy as you stuff your face and slam drinks down your gullet. 2008 Greenville Ave. 469-334-0895, hgsplyco.com Under the Influence Kathy Tran School of Dallas for newComers anD old-timers alike, Dallasites101 offers a refresHing look at all there is to love about Big D “W e’re here. Now what?” It’s a safe bet that question is asked every day around Dallas. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, North Texas was home to three of the 10 fastest-growing counties in the nation between 2020 and ’22, — Kaufman, Rockwall and Parker — and Collin and Denton county were among those with the largest net population gains. Relocating to another metro area is daunting, but luckily immigrants to Dallas have a resource designed to make them feel right at home: Dallasites101, created by Kara Ce- cala and Lily Kramlich-Taylor. They’re Dallas immigrants, naturally: Cecala is from Connecticut and Kramlich-Taylor from California. They met through mutual acquain- tances after moving to Dallas for work in 2014 and bonded over a shared love for their new home. “We kept meeting a lot of other transplants who didn’t love living in Dallas,” Kram- lich-Taylor says. “They would talk to us about how they would go to work and go home and didn’t know how to meet people. They didn’t enjoy the city, and it made us really sad to hear because we were having so much fun.” The pair started an Instagram page to share their experiences with other newcomers. Dallasites101 — the name is a riff on introductory college courses — was created in 2015. The original goal was to serve a niche market of newcomers. After the two got their first offer of money from a local restaurant to place a post on their Instagram site, the model shifted as more offers came in. Today, calling them influencers is a stretch. Cecala and Lily Kramlich-Taylor’s creation has become a small, booming media and marketing business located in a converted house in the State-Thomas District. They em- ploy more than two dozen people and have expanded into newsletters, event planning, advertising and media management. Planners naturally look to the future, and the pair already have their eyes on further expansion. They’ve created Austinites101 on Instagram, and they founded 101Media as an umbrella group for their efforts, which include managing social media for businesses and possible expansion into other cities. Cecala says they’re moving carefully on enter- ing other markets, since key to their success here is the fact that they are here, talking knowledgeably about the city they grew to love. In the meantime, their Dallasites101.com website continues to expand and has be- come a go-to resource loaded with event news, lists of popular venues and businesses, and news on the latest trends. “We truly just wanted to encourage people to get out and about in Dallas and have a great day here and not second-guess living here,” Cecala says. “We really felt like we wanted to create community here.” - PATRICK WILLIAMS
