bomb cyclone DFW

January 4, 2018 11:22 AM

MeFites of the Dallas/Fort Worth area! Suggestions please, for hotel and activities over the next 24 hours.

So, the hubs and I are headed to Boston! BA ha ha!

No, seriously, we're rebooked on a flight tomorrow evening out of DFW. But in the meantime, we are here at the airport and need suggestions for:

• Hotel in an interesting? walkable? part of town? Cab-able to+from the airport?
• Restaurant for this evening, possibly in walking distance from said hotel? We are dressed in (and have packed) jeans-and-fleece-and-hiking-boots-type clothing, so not somewhere that requires fancy clothes. We enjoy sitting at the bar and eating there, if that's an option. We're open to pretty much any type of food/cuisine.
• Activity(ies) to occupy us (with luggage in tow, sigh) Friday before heading back to DFW for our 5:00-ish PM flight to Boston.

Thanks!

posted by mon-ma-tron to Travel & Transportation around Dfw Airport, TX (6 answers total)

The metroplex is enormous, and the airport is in the boring middle. Both Dallas and Ft Worth offer good hotels, restaurants and interesting things to do. It would help if we knew more about your tastes and budget, but absent that I'd recommend the "Uptown" area in Dallas just north of Highway 366. There are hundreds of restaurants (with bars!) for all tastes and budgets there, as well as the excellent Dallas Museum of Art (with sculpture garden!) and the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. There's a reasonably-priced Hyatt House in the area where you could probably stash your bags until leave-for-airport time (probably about 2:30). There are several other alternatives in the area, both more or less pricier. In general, the metroplex is pretty casual, so I wouldn't worry about your clothes.
posted by ubiquity at 12:15 PM on January 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

ubiquity has it. There are some nice boutique-y places around the Cedars neighborhood as well--but again, depends on how much you're prepared to spend.
posted by orrnyereg at 1:16 PM on January 4, 2018

Note for out-of-towners: if you ask someone to take you to highway 366, you will get some funny looks until you call it “Woodall Rodgers.” I don’t think TxDOT even signed it as Spur 366 until 2007.
posted by fireoyster at 1:35 PM on January 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Honestly, if I were you I would just stay at Spa Castle for 24 hours, but that might be my post-holiday blahs talking. It's the middle of nowhere though, you'd have to either rent a car or take a train/bus combo.

Deep Ellum is a neighborhood (which is well known enough to search travel sites for), has a bunch of AirBnBs and hotels these days, music and arty stuff and food within walkable distances.
posted by theweasel at 2:24 PM on January 4, 2018

A few ideas for 24 hrs in Dallas:

Bishop Arts District: Spend they day poking around shops in the hipster-iest of Dallas neighborhoods. See if you can get a last minute reservation to Lucia if you want a nice dinner. For lunch if it's warm enough to eat outside, get a Cuban sandwich and yucca fries at C Senor. Go to the crazy second hand junk shop (don't remember the name, sorry), and if you're nice the owner will give you a beer to drink while perusing the entertaining merchandise.

Fort Worth: Go to the Cowgirl Museum (only in DFW!) and the Contemporary Arts Museum (world class!) for a day of museum browsing. Hit up Billy Bob's Texas to check more Texas off of your bucket list - it's the world's largest Honky Tonk.

Lower Greenville: Get dinner at the Blind Butcher - great charcuterie in an over-the-top Texas fashion, and spend some time wandering up and down the main street to see if anything strikes your fancy for lunch the next day. Spend your afternoon hanging out at the Truck Yard and having a few chill beers before heading back to the airport the next day.
posted by asphericalcow at 4:26 PM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

A few more tips:
- As long as you're within about 45 min of the airport, Lyft and Uber will work just fine, so Lyft/Uber yourself around without worries. Taxis are few and far between in most parts of DFW.
- Texans think that anything within a 30 minute drive is "close" and don't usually walk places, so no one will think you're weird if you do Lyft/Uber between a couple of neighborhoods that are 5-20 min away from each other.
- You can leave your bags at the hotel after you've checked out; it will probably make your life more pleasant than lugging them around. If you do want to visit a museum and then go to the airport, you can probably check them at the museum - most have coat/bag checks and Texans are friendly and will likely help you out even if there is no formal bag check.
- There are a surprisingly number of really good beer bars in the Dallas area, and they tend to get distribution of Texas/Louisiana brews that don't much make it out of the area. If that's your scene, stick "beer" into Yelp for the neighborhood you're in and something with 10-30 taps is likely to come up.
- Except for Highland Park, Dallas is pretty casual. Your clothes will be fine.
posted by asphericalcow at 4:36 PM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]