Every couple of months, we like to take a look at the world of Denton business to find out what's closing, what's opening, and to make pleas for someone to start a good fried chicken place in town. This month, we've got new liquor stores, new chefs, new Thai food, cheap trendy clothing and much more.
Total Wine is opening in the old Bed, Bath and Beyond space over on Loop 288 next to Best Buy. Total Wine is a big box booze barn like Spec's. We would liken Total Wine as the Target to Spec's Wal-Mart.
As of last weekend, Wandervan, our local hip alternative to Uber, is up and running in Denton. That's right, you can use their app to hail one of many converted old school vans to haul your butt from one spot to another. We'll have more info on them in their own piece next week.
Khao San Thai will soon be open on University Dr. in the old Quizno's space. We do already have a lot of quality Thai food in town, but you can't have too much of a good thing, right?
Barley and Board, the upcoming gastropub in the Texas Building (more info here), now has chef Chad Kelly from Dallas' Meddlesome Moth onboard. Meddlesome Moth is a likeminded restaurant with a similar focus on beer/drinks and interesting food to boot. Kelly joins Patrick Stark from the upcoming restaurant 940 down Oak in the old Banter space as another Dallas-based chef attached to a Denton restaurant. We're excited to see the square's dining options change fairly drastically this year.
We continue to find ourselves disappointed with the businesses that have been joined RED Development's Rayzor Ranch "Town Center." Chili's, Raising Cane's, Great Clips, Sleep Number, In-N-Out and a few more have been named as businesses that will join Winco Foods at the site that once housed a bunch of beautiful longhorn cattle on a green hill. While it will be great to be able to go and grab some animal-style chicken fingers or whatever, we were still left feeling a little underwhelmed at these names. None of them evoke the walkable or "pedestrian friendly" spirit that the developer's renderings had originally showcased. We were never expecting something in the line of a Nordstrom nor do we expect all local businesses. There are just plenty of other chains that Dentonites would welcome aside from the cookie cutter Chili's and McWhatever that polka dot every Texas strip center. Its just a little sad to think that RED is getting so much in the way of tax incentives in order to get another Chili's and another movie theatre that will play solely major releases. Oh well. Does Chili's still have those baby rib things?
Movie Tavern has announced plans to expand and renovate their Denton location. They will be getting a remodeled lobby and bar, additional full-service auditoriums, marquee updates and more. They hope to be done by spring 2016.
On the other side of town, H&M, the popular international store that sells trendy fashions at low prices announced that they will soon open shop at Denton's Golden Triangle Mall. The company already has stores in several North Texas cities including Dallas, Plano, Frisco, Grapevine and Mesquite. The Denton location will open this fall. This will be the ultimate test of what does it take to get people to go into the Denton mall.
Oh, and downtown Denton now has a mini-market. Downtown Market is located at 307 S. Locust. We hope to see more local or hard to find items stock the shelves in the near future, but in the meantime, its nice to be able to grab groceries just a few blocks south of the square. You can follow their progress over at their Facebook page.