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

The sun had only recently tucked itself behind the horizon when the trees began dancing before our very eyes. It might have been the laser light show darting across the treetops, or perhaps our brains were fried from a day in the sun. Or maybe it was the bottle of mead we drank with those pirates earlier.