Jennifer Plesko

About twenty miles outside of Dallas, there is a little bar & grill that has intrigued us for awhile now. It’s a small concrete building with no windows, and honestly, it looks like a seedy strip club. But no matter what time of day we drive by, it’s always crowded. Since we like to discover new restaurants, we decided to give it a try on our way back to Dallas on Sunday. Once we were ten miles away, Hubby called to see what the prices were like. When they said that they have a burger and fries special for $3.25, we said “sold!”

We walked in the front door and found ourselves standing in a hallway with a door on our left and a door on our right. Neither was labeled, only covered in concert posters, so we didn’t know which one to try. We opted for the one on the right and wandered into a very dark, very smoky pool hall. As we hovered by the door, Hubby’s OCD started kicking in and he said “Do we want to eat food in here?” Just then, a bartender with a ratty ponytail, lots of tattoos, and a cigarette in her hand yelled, “Come on in! If you’re scared of us now, it ain’t gonna get any better.” Hell of an advertisement. We told her we were there to eat, and she directed us to the room around the corner. It had a juke box, another bar, a pool table, a vending machine, and more bartenders with tattoos. There were beer bottles being stored under the pool table, water stains on the ceiling, and, oddly enough, a big beautiful plasma TV showing Titanic. I eyed the barstool I was about to sit on in my thin jersey dress and prayed that I wasn’t about to get the clap.

Questionable bar

A waitress with an enormous fairy tattooed on her cleavage came over to take our order. I ordered water to drink. Hubby, with his OCD now in full effect, decided he had no choice but to order a beer because it was served in a bottle and he couldn’t bring himself to drink out of a glass in a place like this. He also regretted that we had sat in a spot where we could see straight into the kitchen.

Shady kitchen

When we finally got our burgers, as promised, they were very good. Although I noticed that hubby, who normally eats his fries first and then his burger like I do, had barely touched his fries and stuck with the burger the whole time. He sheepishly admitted that he didn’t want to eat with his bare hands (the burger had a wrapper). And once he had the burger in his hand, he was afraid to put it down. It was kind of like being there with Howard Hughes.

Beer under the pool table

But as out of place as we felt, it was a great place for people watching. Uncle Jesse was seated at the bar. The kid from Deliverance was playing video poker in the next room. Blue from the movie Old School was having dinner by the pool table. Larry the Cable Guy was standing by the jukebox playing John Conlee, Merle Haggard, and Hank III in heavy rotation.  And I’m pretty sure I’d seen just about every other fellow patron on an episode of Cops at some point.

It was quite an atmosphere: friendly and casual, but dark and shady. Which might explain why we initially thought it was a strip club. We’ve decided not to go back.