Feeling Ladytastic at The Beauty Bar

My friend, Sarah, and I wanted to get together the other week for a happy hour and long-overdue chat. She texted and asked where I wanted to go.

I didn't much matter to me - or to her - which meant that it was the perfect opportunity to do something really different. Something like a 101 list item - something ladytastic in Dallas.

That's how we found ourselves at The Beauty Bar in Dallas. It's kind of dive-ish, if dives can be defined by a run-down exterior, laminate floors and 1960s-style furniture. But it's clean and fun and funky, which I suppose makes it a hipster-magnet dive.

Anyway, the deal is this: You can stop in for happy hour and get a martini and a manicure for $10. That's just awesome in my book.

So we both got manicures - nice and simple. A basic clean up shaping of your nails, base coat and two coats of polish (plus a spritz of speed dry, which is why my fingers are glistening...my fingers don't sweat when I have manicures).

And of course we had martinis. The martinis, by the way, were great. You're offered a menu with choices from traditional to girly-ridiculous. I went with my favorite: A dirty martini, extra dirty, shaken not stirred. Perfect.

Since Sarah and I were there for 4 hours, I'd say it was a great place to hang for the evening and catch up.

Fair warning: At some point in the evening/night, The Beauty Bar becomes a nightclub. We are grown women, so we were heading home for a proper bedtime long before that happened.