Five restaurants Denton needs

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Nicholas Friedman / Senior Staff Writer

1. Raising Cane’s

Obviously, Cane’s is delicious and should definitely come here, but the thing is, it’s had plans to come here for at least the past year. Rumored to be popping up at the Rayzor Ranch shopping center off University, Raising Cane’s is one of the last missing links to the Denton food cornucopia. My solution? Let’s just put all of these places into their own strip mall. This way we’ll never eat anything else and we’ll all die early deaths caused by the number of health problems encountered when exclusively gorging on greasy foods. Mortality aside, for the Cane’s sauce alone, let’s hope the building shows up sooner rather than later so we can start the Change.org petition for the rest of these heavy-hunger-hitters.

2. Torchy’s Tacos

I know what you’re thinking and you should stop thinking it because we definitely need another taco place in Denton, especially if it’s Torchy’s. Where else can you get an actual piece of fried chicken smothered in queso, with tomatoes and chilies strewn about? Cover it with the famous Diablo sauce and some poblano ranch and you have a taco with more personality than Kanye West. Sure, it may be called a Trashy Trailer Park, but the taste is anything but trashy. In fact, the only thing trashy in Torchy’s is the dumpster. There’s no better way to improve and innovate our taco ecosystem than by adding a place whose slogan matches the first words you’ll say after taking a bite: “It’s Damn Good.”

3. Dunkin’ Donuts

Donut shops aren’t usually referred to as a full-fledged restaurant, but Dunkin’ comes close. With a menu that covers every meal of the day from breakfast to brunch to second breakfast, Dunkin’ Donuts could totally cover Denton for the entirety of the day. Plus, its coffee is world-famous. So what makes it particularly special? Well, it has an actual cookies and cream donut. Once thought to be pure myth, the doughnut’s Oreo, discovered probably at some point in the last 20 years, takes the great flavor of cookies and cream and molds it into donut form, making for a flavor you can’t begin to predict. Denton folk would totally dig a Dunkin’ Donuts, trust me. Or don’t.

4. Plucker’s

There aren’t many better foods than chicken wings. In fact, there aren’t many anythings better than chicken wings. Okay, so there’s a windfall of money, or a lifetime supply of toilet paper, or a car that can lift itself over traffic, but that’s not the point. Plucker’s doesn’t necessarily shake up the formula, its just perfected the process with a ridiculous amount of flavors ranging from Baker’s Gold (a cinnamon-sweet sauce) to Jalapeno Garlic dry-rub. The establishment also has gargantuan portion sizes, sides out the wazoo, and its own fan club. A fan club…for chicken wings. A visit to Plucker’s isn’t complete without some of their cinnamon-sugar waffle fries and an order of fried pickles, but save room for a mug of root beer and the main course, monstrous wings packed with huge flavor and a spritz of amazingness. Plucker’s should plucking come to Denton.

5. Twisted Root Burger

I didn’t believe it until I saw the little veggie medallions for the first time: Kool-Aid pickles. Twisted Root Burger has a pickle bar where the restaurant cycle their flavors: ranch, sweet and sour, atomic and Kool-Aid. Twisted Root is like taking a juicy burger and throwing whatever you can find in the kitchen on top. Delicious. For example, let’s look at some of the menu items. There’s the Kevin Bacon, which has three strategically placed pieces of bacon on it; the Wing Style, a burger layered in buffalo hot sauce; and Frito Bandito, with Fritos, guacamole and chili crammed between the buns. Wash it down with the odd flavors of watermelon tea or cinnamon root beer and you have a meal. That’s just a small taste of what Twisted Root has to offer, and it should offer it in Denton.

Places We Might Not Miss:

Some of us have fond memories of these places, but much of those are because we didn’t know any better. I kid, but a place like Golden Corral proves that having a large selection isn’t always a positive feature. Or how about Jack in the Box? Yes, its saving grace is the delicious curly fries, but two tacos for a dollar sounds a tad scary. Then there’s Carl’s Jr., maybe I’m partial because I once had a terrifying allergy attack in one of the restaurants, but the burgers didn’t taste particularly special. Last on the list is Applebee’s. I don’t actually dislike Applebee’s. No one should because it has half-price appetizers at night, but apparently there’s a running gag somewhere that puts Applebee’s on the chopping block. We are going to need all the room we can get for these new places anyway.

Feature image courtesy of Raising Cane’s Facebook page.

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