It’s that time of year again, y’all. The school doors are fresh with WD-40 and the cars are accidentally turning north onto Elm St. again. School is back in session and with it, a new crop of Dentonites have flooded our city limits. Will these fresh, young faces become lifelong Dentonites or never step foot outside of their college campus? Only time will tell, but we’ve decided to do our part to get them to become a part of the former group, by providing them with some insider knowledge. Below are a collection of precious WDDI secrets that those new to Denton (and some folks that have been living here for a while) might not yet know. It’s time for Secrets of Denton County VII. Got a Denton secret of your own? Add it to the comments!
Read MoreTENDING BAR: ROY ROBERTSON
In Tending Bar, we like to take a moment and get to know those folks behind the counter at your favorite bar, coffee shop, juice bar, or other beverage-making establishment. Afterall, you probably see these friendly faces more often than you'd like to admit and there's a lot more to them than just the way that craft their drinks. Roy Robertson is a barista at Cultivar Coffee. One could easily make the argument that the little shop on Hickory St. inside of a doughnut store serves some of the best coffee in town (definitely top three). Robertson is also a musician (you probably know him best from the recently defunct Denton band Pageantry) and just an all around solid dude. We stopped by Cultivar last week to talk with Robertson and grab a few photos of him at work to document his process. Read on for more...
Read MoreWHAT WE DID: APRIL 17TH 2017
What We Did is our weekly roundup of a few photos that have been tagged with #WDDI on Instagram. Together, they give you a great idea of what all has been going on in town over the past week.
Below are 18 photos from the past seven days of life in Denton, TX. They include scenes of egg hunts, food, hikes, a dog eating a crawfish and much more.
If you'd like to be included in What We Did, tag your images with #WDDI on Instagram, and check back here next Monday. Search the hashtag #WDDI to check out a bunch of other great photos of stuff happening in town. You can click the images below to be led back to that photographer's Instagram page. Follow us on Instagram to see more Denton imagery.
Got a question about What We Did? Send it to will@wedentondoit.com.
Read MoreWHAT WE DID: SEPTEMBER 7TH
Okay, the weather folks are whispering about rain and cold fronts later this week. We're hoping that writing about it won't jinx it 'cause we could sure go for some sub-90 temps right about now. Grilling steaks on Labor Day weekend when the thermometer is buzzing around 100 ain't too fun. Anyway, here's a day late What We Did (it isn't a dollar short, though). We took Labor Day off to eat some baked dough with cheese at Pizza Snob.
What We Did is our weekly roundup of photos that WDDI staff and readers have taken over the past seven days. We've got 21 of our favorite images from the past week in Denton, TX below. In this group, we've got plenty of scenes from our pool party at the Civic Center Pool, new restaurants, live music, and some beautiful pizza shots.
If you'd like to be included in What We Did, tag your images with #WDDI on Instagram, and check back here next Monday. As always, we're limited in the photos we can post, but we encourage you to search the hashtag #WDDI and check out all of the other awesome photos that we were unable to include this week. Click the images below to be led back to the photographer's Instagram page. Have a great week!
Got a question about What We Did? Send it to will@wedentondoit.com.
Read MoreHYPNOTIC: DONUT EVER LEAVE US
Words and Images by Will Milne
We've been super excited about Hypnotic Donuts and Cultivar Coffee Bar opening in Denton since November of last year. People have conceived and given birth to children since then, y'all. Wednesday, they will finally open their doors to all of us clamoring for fun donuts, wonderful coffee, chicken biscuits, and more (we haven't had the chance to try their salads or poutine yet).
Sunday, they held a soft-opening in which customers could grab a free donut and glass of beer or wine. People responded. There was a line down the block. Also, it was hot. We waited for while after thinking we were smart getting there fifteen minutes early, but apparently in Denton, everyone is smart. They had a double super secret opening before the soft-opening, but we weren't invited to that (whine). Oh well. The wait was worth it. We grabbed an Evil Elvis, Breaking Bad, and a straight up glazed (requested by the six year old in our party). All of which lived up to the hype.
The Breaking Bad was a chocolate donut with caramel icing and sea salt. The flavors all coalesced perfectly and had just a hint of saltiness which we loved. The Evil Elvis featured peanut butter, bacon and banana all on a yeast-raised donut and was a meal unto itself which we'd rather have than a sandwich any day. The comfortable pillow-like consistency of each donut had us already feeling nostalgic for this place that hasn't even opened yet
Cultivar is also one of our favorite coffee roasters in DFW and didn't disappoint in their new Denton location. They're rocking a La Marzocca espresso machine and the cold brew was on point - it had us awake until 9:15pm (with a combo of donuts and red wine, this is saying something). The space is nice, bright and can easily accommodate a line, which we're guessing they will have quite a bit. The little patio area outside will also be fun. And if you eat too many donuts, Sprockets is next door - just hop on over, buy a bike/helmet and work off them carbs (might as well buy a cupcake from NV while you're at it, though)!
Below are a few of our shots from the soft-opening on Sunday. Hypnotic Donuts and Cultivar Coffee Bar will open for good in Denton on this Wednesday, September 3rd at 7am. We're probably gonna be there.
The menu.
Breaking Bad on top.
The line at about 7pm.
The Evil Elvis is on the left.
Picking out donuts.
Wade Matheny on the espresso machine.
The breaking bad.
Owner James taking a picture of the line.
The inside
A stack of 'em.
QUICK DENTON BUSINESS UPDATE: AUGUST 2014
As always, there's a lot going on in town, business-wise at the moment. Glen is gone on his honeymoon at the moment, so there's no Mr. Farris Goes to City Hall column, but instead we've got a fast-paced post with a bunch of updates on local businesses for ya.
Bet the House, the recently-opened BBQ restaurant on South Elm, is doing great and expanding their seating area. In addition, they've hired a few helping hands and will be rolling out a few new menu items including things such as brisket and pulled pork eggrolls. Needless to say, we're excited.
Crickette's Flowers and Gifts on University by Books and More closed up shop for good recently. We wish them the best.
Captain Nemo's has been open for a bit over at the old Hoochie's location on Bell. While they're currently being faced with a lawsuit for usage of the name "Captain Nemo's" from a former owner, they seem to be doing well. After being threatened with legal action from naming one of our older posts "The Denton Taco Trail" we feel for them. Have you stopped by Captain Nemo's to grab a steak sandwich yet?
The newly-revamped Sweetwater should be open in mid-to-late August.
We recently spoke with Matt Fisher of West Oak Coffee Bar who gave us an opening date of October for their new coffee shop complete with a creative workspace and chocolate milk on tap. We're not holding our breath for that one, though. As much as we want it to be open right now, we're expecting it may be a little later than October. That said, we've been watching their work from afar and those men are going at it pretty hard so they just may prove us wrong (which we hope they do).
A stack of Hypnotic Donuts' donuts from their Dallas location.
Hypnotic Donuts and Cultivar Coffee should be open in about one to two weeks. More on that within the next week, hopefully.
Pizza Snob will open this fall in the retail space at the bottom of Martino Group's H Squared apartments on Hickory Street. The build-your-own pie facility will also feature beer and wine and has a location near TCU in Fort Worth already which we can attest to being pretty dang good.
Speaking of apartments, H Squared apartments on Hickory and Jack Bell's The Adagio apartments on South Locust should both open this month.
Shift Coffee will reopen (after being closed for six months) at the base of The Adagio apartments. We've reached out to them for comments and to check out the space, and hope to hear back soon (tell Angelo to call me back, y'all).
Vietbites' will open their new, speed-oriented location closer to UNT very soon. The spot, next to a place called Seoul Wings and Beer that we're pretty darn excited about just based on their name, and the location that Sushi Cafe is relocating into was recently called "accidental Asian fusion" by the Denton Record Chronicle.
Outside of city lines, but still in Denton County, the Whole Foods in Highland Village will open on September 10th. In a Cross Timbers Gazette article, a spokesperson for the the healthy grocery chain called it, "[our] first store in Denton County," which has us excited.
More meat markets are coming. A new La Azteca and a La Michocana Meat Market will soon be open on University and the Better Block location on Sherman in the next few months. We hear they're a great place to "meat" singles, but we don't know what that means.
Thrift Giant, a used-good chain opened over on 288 last month. We'll probably stick to our list of thrifty places, though.
That's it for now. Do you have an update that we missed? Tell us in the comments. If you have an upcoming business that you'd like to let us know about, email will@wedentondoit.com and tell us all about it.