This year we've seen a lot of businesses come and go. We did our best to try and keep up with everything. We reviewed a few restaurants and highlighted some of our favorite new businesses through any way we could. We took a minute and looked back to the many new businesses that opened their doors in Denton in 2013 and argued about which ones were our favorites. Below is a list of our top five new businesses of 2013 along with a couple runner ups. Feel free to argue with us in the comments!
The Georgie Boy burger from Lone Star Attitude.
LSA
There’s a place for organically grown businesses - little mom and pop shops that slowly come together over time and eventually become powerhouses of local business. Beth Marie’s was like that. We see that in the future of South Locust with The DIME Store and Shift both opening this year. LSA is basically the opposite of that situation. LSA is what happens when businessmen and restaurateurs throw tons of money into an awesome old burger place. Denton normally doesn’t embrace these types of things. LSA, however, somehow hit the nail on the head. Apparently, one of the things the square was missing was an almost Hard Rock Cafe-like, family-friendly burger place. We ran down a list of the reasons we dig LSA last month. You can check that out here. It's more of an fun atmosphere place than anything else, but they do have a nice, solid burger. Since our initial preview, we've always seen at least a 15 minute wait to be seated every time we've stopped by, so a lot of others must be diggin' it, too.
A cinnamon roll from Royal's
Royal’s
Royal’s would’ve made this list if they were just opened for one hour a week, every week and they only sold those gosh-darned cinnamon rolls. They’re that good. However, on top of that, Royal’s also offers all sorts of bagels, bagel sandwiches and we’ve recently discovered that their salads are delicious, too. We were bummed when Jupiter House: Europa closed up shop. We always like seeing interesting businesses on the northern side of town, but we never knew Joey Hawkins would soon open up an even better spot. He probably owes his entire city council-ship to those cinnamon rolls. If you're still interested in Royal's you can check out our preview from last spring here.
The taco special from Viet Bites.
Viet Bites
Can y’all believe that Viet Bites hasn’t been open for a year yet? Seems like we’ve been munching on their banh mi and slurpin’ their pho for years now. We raved about this little spot a few months back. While Denton has it’s fill of Thai food, it was welcoming to see a Vietnamese restaurant open up in town. While they had a bit of a slow start, they've quickly established themselves as a go-to spot for locals - we imagine they’they've stolen a large portion of the Mr. Chopsticks crowd. We still stand by our claim that the specials at Viet Bites are some of the best food you can get in town.
The DIME Store
The DIME Store was a shoe in for this. Owners Rachely Aughtry and Shelley Christner, have brought together some of the best artisans of hand-made goods that Denton has to offer under one roof. Handmade furniture, vintage goods, prints, beauty products and jewelry are only a little bit of what The DIME Store has to offer. In addition, these ladies put on classes to help people sell their goods online and have catered parties in the store quite often. South Locust is quickly becoming one of our favorite spots in town - can we all take a minute, and agree to never start calling it SoLo or something like that, though? That may ruin the whole thing.
Shift Coffee
Shift
Denton really upped it’s coffee game in 2013. We even started writing a column about it. Shift better exemplified that than any other coffee shop this year. While the place may not look like much, the methodology and craftsmanship that you’ll find inside are impressive. While we’ve seen third wave coffee done in Denton before, it’s never been done to quite the degree that Angelo Fesperman and his crew of merry baristas are doing at Shift. These guys have absorbed coffee knowledge from some of the best spots in the metroplex and are putting it on display in town. They even had their first art show this past weekend that was actually quite well attended. Suffice it to say, we have high hopes for this little shop. If you haven’t found Shift yet, that’s okay. It’s located across Locust and down Prairie from The DIME Store. Go there soon and see if you can get yourself an inverted Aeropress brew.
Runners up to this year's list:
- Authentic Yoga Life
- East Side Social Club