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Truluck's in Uptown is a better bar all around

Ah, a bar you can move around.

What should be the standard is less than common. Nightspots usually build out the bar against a wall and then stack customers three deep in front of it, with all the accompanying crush and agita. The bar of the Stone Crab Lounge at the new Truluck's in Uptown is an elongated horseshoe that allows for some elbow room and convivial mingling and cross-talk.

Open only three weeks, this Truluck's lounge, bigger, at 90 seats, and spiffier, is siphoning off some of the office exodus that flows to the nearby Sambuca and Ocean Prime after 5. Like those two, it's grasping at the supper-club ideal of one-stop drinking, dining and live music, of making a night of it without accruing extra car mileage and valet charges.

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One evening last week, that long ellipse became a cul-de-sac of after-work romance. Three generations of giving it a go were represented, paired off in back-stretching, hair-tossing, glass-clinking intimacy. They largely ignored the pianist-vocalist, who strained to perform Every Song Ever Written on keyboard and laptop.

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Like some other legacy dining establishments, Truluck's lags behind in the cocktail race. The drink menu leans toward the sweet (the usual cosmo and mule) and indulgent (the Dinner Martini of Belvedere Intense vodka garnished with blue-cheese olives). But happy hour takes the sting out of the expected with half-price cocktails and featured wines daily from 5 to 6:30 p.m.