Things to do in Dallas?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Sonlost the younger is part of a high school team who won a state scholastic competition, and now they’re going to the nationals in Dallas! So we’re making a family vacation out of it. We’ll be leaving around June 17 and returning around the 25th.

One thing I want to try for sure is some good authentic Texas brisket BBQ, so please share recommendations for the best BBQ in or around Dallas.

I see from the Discourse “your topic is similar to…” there are a couple posts asking the same, which I will check out, but the most recent is ‘05.

Also, any recs for things to do or see on the way will be much appreciated. We are planning to drive, and are coming from the metro Detroit area. We are tentatively thinking of taking a slight detour to see the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and staying the night.

2

You can see the Dandelion (the Reunion Tower,) there are a number of good museums, etc.

But I have rarely been back to Dallas since my childhood (age 0-6) so I’m really out of touch with things there, sadly.

3

Here is a thread from two weeks ago on what to do in Dallas:

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Jeez, how did I miss that? Thanks!

5

Survival kit contents check. In them you’ll find: one .45 caliber automatic; two boxes of ammunition; four days concentrated emergency raisons; one drug issue containing: antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills,…

Stranger

6

Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.

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Or Dallas. (Which was the line before they overdubbed it due to the recent assassination of John F. Kennedy.)

Stranger

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For BBQ, I thonk Terry Blacks is the best experience for someone out of town. The pits are out front, so you can see them, and the cafeteria style order by the pound is pretty cool. The brisket is amazing. The sides are good but not amazing. I like it better than Pecan Lodge.

Dallas World Aquarium is fun for kids. They have some neat exhibits.

Dallas Historic Village/Old City Park is free. Its just your standard “haul a bunch of old buildings you don’t want to demolish into a park” type place, but if your kids have never seen a one room cabin or a dogrun cabin or an old timey hotel or schoolhouse, its neat. It short on signs, unfortunately (if I had a ton of money, I’d donate a bunch to Old City Park.)

The Dallas Museum of Art opens out onto a large deck park with a ton of food trucks and a playground and all that. Its fun. There is a free trolly from the park (Klyde Warren) to several areas with better parking.

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That’s saying something, because Pecan Lodge is awfully good!

@solost, the one thing you’ll butt up against is that Dallas isn’t really much of a tourist city. It’s got some neat stuff to see, but it doesn’t really have any “signature” attractions. A lot of the stuff like that which would qualify is over in Fort Worth.

If you don’t mind me asking, where in town is the academic competition going to be held? Maybe we can scare you up some decent restaurants nearby that aren’t mentioned in that other thread. It’s a big city in itself, and what people call “Dallas” is even bigger. So at least as far as food goes, it might be worth finding some more local results, if you’re actually going to be spending time in say… Farmers Branch, instead of downtown Dallas.

Most of the “touristy” stuff is near downtown in both cities though.

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It’s at the Dallas Convention Center, 650 S. Griffin St.

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Yikes. I work very close to there a couple of days a week, and there’s not much in the way of restaurants very close by, other than the really expensive ones by the Omni Hotel.

The Bishop Arts District, Design District, and Deep Ellum are all fairly close, albeit in different directions. They all have fantastic restaurants. The Cedars has a few, and is relatively close, but for whatever reason, I haven’t been over there much.

The Dallas Farmer’s Market has a pretty cool food hall, and it’s a few blocks east of there on the other side of City Hall. Rex’s and La Ventana are excellent, if you go to the Farmer’s Market, as is Beyond the Butchers. If you’re feeling like steaks or something, you can actually pick them out at the nearby American Butchers shop, and they’ll cook it for you at the restaurant (same folks own both). There’s also a Dallas and Texas-centric crap store in there, if you want souvenirs.

I’d take a car though, there are a lot of homeless people wandering around between the Convention Center and the Farmer’s Market, and even absent them, the walk isn’t particularly pleasant, being all concrete and parking lots.

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What hotel will you be at?

The convention center has a light rail station under it, and a fair bit is available on the DART lines.

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Thanks for the intel, bump. We will have a car, though we were planning to walk around when we could. The place we’re looking at staying is a 10 minute walk from the convention center, so we were planning to walk with him over to it. Is the area reasonably safe to walk in the daytime?

Thanks, that’s good to know. We were looking at a place called Sonder of Commerce, but knowing the DART line is there should give us more options.

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Downtown is generally pretty safe for walking, at least during the daytime. I used to ride the DART train from the North (Red/Orange line) and am familiar with the areas around most of the stops.

If you’ll be riding the DART trains, Mockingbird Station has a lot of stuff right on top of the station itself- one of those mixed-use developments also called “Mockingbird Station”.

A bit further north, there’s LOTS stuff within a fairly short distance of the Lovers Lane station. Fairly short being inside a mile, with a lot being even closer.

I wouldn’t go to the West End though, or if I did, I wouldn’t get off at that station. It’s not particularly safe at that station. Lots of crime and really sketchy types hang out there. I’d honestly walk over to the JFK memorial/Elm St. than take DART and get off at West End.

After Lovers Lane, Park Lane is right next to a big shopping development (Shops at Park Lane) and Northpark Mall on one side, and on the other it’s very close to some of the lowest income, highest crime apartment areas in town.

From there, the next few stations (Walnut Hill, Forest Lane (my station), and LBJ Central) are pretty sparse on the stuff nearby; normal suburban stuff, but nothing special. Spring Valley is a short distance from the biggest Middle Eastern/Muslim area in DFW - there are a lot of restaurants over there, but I have only been to one or two. I mostly frequent the grocery stores(Jasmine & Sara’s).

Arapaho Center station is weirdly placed; a half mile back and it would have been within walking distance of downtown Richardson, and with it, one of the largest Asian restaurant concentrations in DFW. If you do go up there, and decide to walk, Jeng Chi Restaurant is fantastic.

After Arapaho Center, the only other place I would consider would be downtown Plano (Downtown Plano Station) and eating at Jorg’s Cafe Vienna, which is a Austrian restaurant (meaning somewhere between German and Hungarian) or maybe Lockhart Smokehouse, but I think I’d go to the one in Bishop Arts on Davis St. before I’d go up to Plano for it. I think I’d hit Terry Blacks or Pecan Lodge first if I wanted barbecue anyway.

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I think Kirin Court is closer, and at least as good.

Though Jeng Chi is very good, and the China Town shopping center is more interesting.

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To expand on this, one th8ng we do well here is Dallas is eat and drink. However, that is not super interesting for kids.

17

Nope.

I think near downtown, probably one of the very most interesting things for kids would have to be the Perot Museum, followed by the Dallas World Aquarium. Outside of those two, there’s not much for kids downtown.

There is one interesting thing I’d forgotten… the main downtown library across from City Hall has the only copy of the Declaration of Independence west of the Mississippi. They’ve also got some other interesting exhibits - a Shakespeare First Folio, and some other stuff.

Exhibits - J. Erik Jonsson Central Library (dallaslibrary2.org)

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Thanks for all the recommendations so far!

My kids are not that young-- the one who’s the reason why we are going is 17 and his brother is 20. The 17 year old will be involved with the competition for much of the daytime hours, and it’s closed to family, so we can’t observe. So we will be mainly doing things with our 20 year old during the day. And we told him if he doesn’t want to do something his mother and I do, he can stay back at the hotel and swim all day or whatever.

There’s an H. Ross Perot Museum? I don’t think any of us will want to go to that :smirk:

Heh, yeah, Mrs. solost and I may go to the Perot Nature and Science Museum, and sonlost the Older can come along, or do his own thing. He has expressed interest in the aquarium.

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The one time I went, I found it very child-oriented. It might be pretty boring for a 20-year-old.

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If you want to do something different, you can go to the Best Maid Pickle Emporium. It’s a big pickle store.
I wouldn’t go very far out of my way for it, but if you’re within 15 minutes or so and want to buy some cute pickle souvenirs or some yummy pickle flavored jerky, stop by.