At the table next to me, two sharply dressed 60-something married couples are on a double date, the ladies wearing fine jewelry, sipping a nice Chardonnay and laughing a little louder after every glass. Once the second course has been cleared from the table, I take a seat and introduce myself. "I'm a doctor," a stately gentleman with a thick accent says, "and he's an ER doctor," he says, pointing to the man sitting next to him. The ER doctor reaches out to shake my hand, and two courses in, I can see a faint pinkness in the whites of his eyes. "Nice to meet you," he says. "Do you have any Cheetos?"

The pink Himalayan salt lamps might be the first clue that Burgundy Local isn’t a typical Texas rancher-run meat market. On Ross Avenue, sandwiched between a craft beer-heavy sports bar and a specialty booze store selling high-end bitters, a small storefront serves as an extension of Jon Taggart’s rolling, grassy North Texas cattle ranch. The minute you step inside the market, you can’t miss him: Taggart, thumbs hooked in his pockets, standing in a massive photo mural behind the register. He’s

Jonathan Everidge nurses his cocktail, eyes trained on the TVs above the bar, watching as CNN reports live from two blocks away. "This feels weird," I mutter into my beer, and Everidge responds without taking his eyes off the TV. "It's beyond weird," he says, sounding deflated. "It's surreal." It's 5:30 p.m. on a Friday at City Tavern downtown — prime happy hour in a dark, wood-paneled bar that, by this time of day, is usually filled with suits and the downtown office crowd. But not today. Wi

The dingy white house has no signage, nothing but the faint smell of chorizo to indicate that its contents yield some of the best damn breakfast tacos in all of Texas. Sitting on an unassuming lot in the Northside neighborhood of Fort Worth, Aguilera's Cafe is a taco landmark — one that could quietly disappear at any moment. The man behind the tacos: 90-year-old Santos Aguilera, whose father originally opened the taco spot more than 50 years ago. Walking into Aguilera's feels almost intrusive,

Six years ago, after accepting a job in Beaumont, I spent an afternoon Googling the unfamiliar land that would eventually become my home. On page one of Google’s search results, these are the first things I learned, in order:

Hollie Toups starts every morning with a cup of coffee and several pornographic websites. Toups, a 32-year-old teacher's aide living in Nederland, isn't looking for racy pictures. She's looking for herself.