Our Month in Review post takes a look back at the previous... 28 days and all of the events and happenings including business openings/closings and all sorts of other art happenings. So, in case you missed something, this is your opportunity to get caught up before the ides of March.
February contains lots of love, black history and apparently a few business closings. That’s right, as you already know by this point, Denton Square Donuts closed down on Valentine’s Day. The store had seen three different sets of owners (that we know of), and had recently even started selling real donuts (but they had also gotten rid of Bookish Coffee), so it wasn’t really much of a surprise to find out they were finally shutting their doors. We remember waiting in line for thirty minutes on their opening day a few years ago to sample their wares only to be disappointed by the airy pastries that didn’t resemble donuts to us. Painting with a Twist, a local franchise, will be taking over the spot. They’re a painting studio with a push on wine and being social. Some of the other Painting with a Twist locations even have date nights.
In other closing news, Sweetwater has been sold to Rick and Trey from RT's (they’re the namesake of the R and the T, respectively). They'll be shutting down for a couple of months to renovate and then reopen as Sweetwater under new ownership. We’re hoping that the meatloaf, burger, and jazz nights don't change at all. But somehow, we doubt that will happen.
In happy news, Hoochie's announced that they will be moving a tetris block closer to the square and taking over the old Burguesa/Gio’s/Hot Box spot on the currently-being-rennovated East Hickory Street. We think this will be a great move for them and hope they can still have some sort of great outdoor dining like they had at their current location which we did like. Don't get us wrong, the beer/train thing was cute and all - but geez it was loud.
Thin Line happened again and was better than ever before. We interviewed some canucks with a documentary about dog dancing, but the big story this year was the fact that ThinLine had music, too, and everything seemed to go off without a hitch - nary even a weather mishap.
Mini A-kon 7 (and Geekon) happened at the Civic Center and was full of kids in glorious cosplay and some fun folks from Funimation. We loved it and can’t wait until next year.
The Denton Creatives Mixer at Rubber Gloves happened and had a bunch of ideas that are hopefully circulating. We talked about it a bit in one of our What We Did posts.
Food trucks had another banner month. @DentonTrucks tells us that there were plenty of new-to-Denton trucks (including Cupcake Garden and BellaTrino) that we saw in February and hope to see come back soon.
In coffee news, West Oak Coffee Bar is starting to shape up. We peer in and every and then when we walk by and are getting more and more excited. Shift, sadly closed their doors for a few months while Jack Bell (the property owner) redoes that space to make it better than ever before. We’re excited for their reopening - whenever that may be - and really wanna try a phoenix cappucino. Which we don’t know exactly what that is because we just made it up, but we’re sure they’ll serve it. Speaking of coffee, Recycled Books recently started carrying whole beans from each of the four major Denton coffee roasters: Bookish, Coffeewright, Macaronia Island and Seven Mile. So, if you need your coffee fix, but want options, you know where to head.
The race for mayor had some interesting goings-on in February. Days before the deadline for filing, councilman Kevin Roden asked if the city wanted him to run for mayor. He received lots of feedback, but decided against running this year. He did bring a lot of attention to the race between mayoral candidates Jean Schaake, Chris Watts, and Donna Woodfork.
Also, The Dallas Observer had a lot to say about Denton this month. They discussed the people of Denton music festivals, our mayor getting sued, why local printers Pan Ector are so cool, and gave 20 reasons why Denton is a "a music fan's paradise."
Herrera's were going to open up early in the month. And then they were going to open up later in the month and now it’s the end of the month and it still hasn't opened. Coming soon...still. Will the regional Mexican favorite be able to sustain as much business as LSA across the way? Time will tell. It’s off and on warm enough now for us to be craving margaritas and chips constantly so...maybe.
All of that plus we talked with Katie Kelly of Archer + Hare, spent some time thinking about Black History Month, picked out our favorite soups, ate a lot of breakfast tacos, started a collaboration with People of Denton and a whole slew of other things. It was a good month.