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We bought a bar

Somewhere in Dallas at this very moment someone is ordering a craft cocktail packed with crushed ice, organic produce and boysenberry infused vodka, and they are paying some $14 for it. For those who find this silly, there is Kings X, where the drinks come simple, strong and cheap.

As the bartender says, “There are no mixologists here. We have your basic liquors, beer in bottles, Natural Light in a can.”

The décor, entirely by accident, is momentarily trendy, and the company (unlike the shuffleboard competition) is friendly.

Inside the small dark dive, past the oldfashioned cigarette machine and wall menu (which, without a hint of irony, offers Tombstone pizza for $6 and White Castle Burger for $1.50), regulars line the long bar. They saddle up early and watch daytime TV with Becky Wolford, the bartender/ manager who has been here 20 years.

“We watch Family Feud, Steve Harvey, Ellen, but if someone wants to play the jukebox, we will turn down the TVs and let them hear their songs,” Wolford says.

In the evenings, the crowd thickens, and, these days, groups of 20-somethings in skinny jeans and well-groomed beards, mix with the old timers and Gen Xers.

“They say they heard it was a great dive bar,” co-owner David Pokorski, a medical adhesive salesman from Lake Highlands, says of the hipster crowd.

Pokorski’s friend and co-owner Brandon Beeson says he started coming here 10 years ago. To the regulars, he and his buddies were “the suits.”

And after a decade of drinking, talking, planning and trust-building, a few weeks ago Beeson, Pokorski and three friends — Dustin Sparks, Brant Ince and Derek Ferem — purchased Kings X from Joan and Monte McDearmon, the Garland couple who had owned the place since the early 1980s, when it was just a few years old.

When asked if they’ve made any upgrades, the guys flash each other know- ing grins. “We added a hand dryer to the bathroom,” says Beeson, a commercial real estate attorney.

“We replaced the hot water heater,” adds Sparks, also an attorney.

“And got a new TV,” chimes in an eavesdropper at the bar.

Thing is, the regulars dictate most changes, and they like for things to stay pretty much the same, explains Beeson.

Though they are not opposed to all modernity — Kings X supplies free wireless Internet, and one elderly war veteran who commonly occupies the barstool near a countertop touchscreen game reportedly is hooked on social media; he updates the Kings X Facebook page.

Beeson says he first heard of Kings X on The Ticket, a local sports radio station.

“They were interviewing Don Nelson, who was the Dallas Mavericks coach at the time, and he mentioned that his favorite place to hang was Kings X, and I thought, ‘that’s right by my house!’”

Photographic evidence of Nelson’s patronage peppers the walls. Wolford says Nelson still comes in when he’s in town. She also confirms the rumor that actor Owen Wilson accompanied the coach on a couple of occasions.

The guys love the bar’s convenience and simplicity and the kindness of those who frequent it. There is one regular who walks the bartenders out every night, to make sure they are safe, Pokorski says.

“We all grew up with the show, Cheers. This is our Cheers.”

Kings X’s occupancy limit is 49, and it comes closest on karaoke nights (every other Wednesday), live music nights (Whiskey Pants is an especially popular ensemble) and during shuffleboard tournaments, which are intensely competitive.

Despite the posted menu, there is quality food to be had at, or at least near, Kings X.

One neighbor, Lalibela, serves Ethiopian food, and another, Thai 2 Go, offers delicious Thai and Chinese takeout.

“They both are very good restaurants,” Beeson explains, “and we hope to partner with them. Some of the regulars, you know, don’t think they would like Ethiopian food and then they try it and see how good it is.”

All of the new owners have fulltime day jobs and they say the bar definitely requires work. They credit their daytime bartender, Wolford, with keeping everything running smoothly.

“She is the enforcer,” says co-owner Ince, who nonetheless takes many an afternoon phone call when something needs attention.

They all, also, have wives who have come to embrace the idea of owning a neighborhood bar.

“I told my wife gently, but as time went on, it turned into ‘our bar’,” Ince says.

At a recent send-off party for the outgoing proprietors, the new owners’ wives showed up in “My Husband Bought A Bar” T-shirts.

Ince says his wife put into words what he thinks they all are feeling: “’We didn’t just buy a bar, we bought a family,’ is what she says. And that’s true. The regulars, the former owners, the staff — we consider all of them friends.”

His partners nod in agreement.

—Christina Hughes-Babb

MORE INFO

King’s X is located at 9191 Forest Lane.

SEE PHOTOS

Visit lakehighlands.advocatemag.com for a slideshow.

Young Einstein

What happens when you give a 12-year-old perfectionist a messy stack of pancakes?

When said adolescent is Lake Highlands neighbor Justin Yarbrough, you get Pancake Perfection, an invention that cuts pancakes into perfect squares and slathers them with syrup at the same time — no batteries needed.

Today Yarbrough is a junior at Lake Highlands High School, and he just received a patent for Pancake Perfection, which wowed judges back in 2009 during the Richardson ISD Invention Convention.

Yarbrough was a sixth-grader at White Rock Elementary when he entered Pancake Perfection in the convention, which has been held in Richardson for 30 years and is open to all RISD students from kindergarten through 12th-grade.

He built a prototype out of a pizza cutter with a syrup bottle stuck to the handle. Then he set up a booth, where he demonstrated his device over and over again for the judges and other students. Children and adults alike loved the device (and the pancakes) and Yarbrough won Best in Show, Best Invention Related to Storage and Organization, and the Rube Goldberg award. Best of all, he won the Most Patentable Award from the worldwide law firm Baker Botts LLP, which has been the driver behind the five-year journey to patent Yarbrough’s creation, although there’s never been a guarantee.

“They didn’t know it could be patented for sure,” Yarbrough says. “The attorneys are trying to see which [version] has the most potential, because if they get to a certain stage and it doesn’t work out, that’s a lot of money wasted.”

But the journey recently came to a close when Yarbrough received an official patent from the director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Interesting side note: Yarbrough isn’t the only one in his family with a patent. His great uncle invented a no-sag gate in the ’50s, and his dad invented cardboard furniture for college students.

As for what’s next for Yarbrough, it’s hard to say. But regardless, his friends already are eager to share in his success.

“They’re like, ‘Can we star in your infomercial?’ ” he says with a laugh.

—Brittany Nunn

Dream come true

Before he says “Salvador Dali” you practically know how Daniel Angeles is going to answer the question: “By which famous artist are you most inspired?” before he says “Salvador Dali.” In his visually sharp and otherworldly paintings, Angeles reanimates the spirit of the great surrealist. A vintagelooking streetlamp with a glowing bird for a bulb, a set of Louboutin heels whose bloodcolored bellies match dripping red flowers sprouting from one forest-green upper — Angeles’ subjects are the things of dreams, placed with exceptional precision and skill on canvas.

Before this watercolor series — exhibited Kim or Out-­of-­the-­ordinary Venue

Birthday Parties • Staff Appreciation Events • Baby Showers • Group Play Dates Holiday Get-­togethers • Creative Socials • Scout Badges • Group Date Nights Artistic Pot Lucks • Wedding Reception Projects • Whatever you have in mind!

 Pottery Painting (White Bisque)

 Clay Workshops & Handprint Impression Plaques

 Drawing Lessons (Group & Private) kim@artisticgatherings.com • 214.821.8383  Since 2004!

P.O. Box 141380 Dallas TX 75214  www.artisticgatherings.com

Artistic Gatherings will close its Casa Linda shop on June 30th, transforming into a mobile art business serving White Rock Lake and surrounding areas. And Kim will spend more time being an active local artist!!!  in a sold out Craighead Green Gallery show Angeles worked with acrylic on canvas, an “entirely different medium,” he explains.

During his acrylic era, launched about four years ago, Angeles was timid, and he feared putting his mind’s abstractions on canvas.

“Afraid that if I put those images on paper, people wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t respond,” he says.

But after completing “Illuminate” (the one with the bird lamp) he knew he was on the right path.

“I loved it more than anything I’d ever created,” he says. Working in watercolors was different from anything he’d done before. “I don’t know exactly what it is the way the paper absorbs the color, there is something finite about it.” enlightened by a life event that inspired the painting.”

In four short years, the 28-year-old’s work has been well received in Dallas and around the country. Before seriously picking up painting, he worked a 9-5 job as an accounts manager at a motor club company.

Angeles’ partner, Ken Morris with whom he shares a Lake Highlands home encouraged him to pursue his art career. Business minded and sensible, Morris did not encourage this lightly.

One particularly sad painting called “The Gift” was for Ken, after his dog died — a red collar surrounded by butterflies with that dripping red flower sprouting from its center.

As part of an upcoming fundraiser for the SPCA, Angeles will sell 1,000 prints of “The Gift” and donate 25 percent of the proceeds to the animal welfare agency (visit craigheadgreen.com for details).

Angeles’ deep love of animals and nature is evident in most of his work — certain birds, butterflies, elephants, whales, eggs and flowers appear and reappear.

“At first he thought I should keep [the day job], but after he saw my work he said, ‘you actually are a good artist. You should do this …’”

Each piece has a personal meaning behind it, Angeles says.

“This is my journal … the dripping and illuminating subjects represent how I literally pour myself into my artwork or am

“Anyone who sees my art can tell I derive inspiration from nature and especially birds, which I see as free and not bound by the rules of gravity,” Angeles writes in his artist statement. “This speaks to my desire to free my mind of inhibitions, let go of logic and reason, and allow my imagination to come to life.” —Christina

Hughes Babb

SEE MORE of Daniel Angeles’ art at artbydangeles.com