Whistlin' Dixie's Texas Tavern
714 11th Ave, at 51st; 212.349.4370
Restaurants with elaborate themes don't always work out -- take Ninja, for instance, or its little known, salty predecessor, Pirate. Then there's Whistlin' Dixie's Texas Tavern -- opening Tuesday, with the simple theme of messing-you-up.
Dixie's is an over-the-top "Tequila Bar & Mexican Margarita Restaurant" staffed by ladies in Daisy Dukes and wifebeaters (the three owners are all women, so the unis are really only exploiting you and your bedraggled liver). To compromise your sobriety, they're serving up 22 frozen drinks (e.g., the dangerously patriotic, red, white, and blue Dixie's Favorite), plus overloaded cocktails like "Texas Tea" -- a Long Island Iced Tea, plus bourbon, minus shame, plus a little shame. There're also 38 tequilas, including Monte Alban Mezcal garnished with a fat, supposedly hallucinogenic, agave worm. The food's also party-time, e.g., fajitas, fish tacos, and "Burritos Gigante Del Mundo" -- which is how big an agave worm will tell you he is, after you've eaten an agave worm.
To make all this inebriation cost-effective, there are daily happy hours, the sweetest being Friday's unlimited margaritas ($10, 5-8pm) and Sunday's Service Industry Night, when exotic dancers drink free -- though that negates your opportunity to buy a dancer's drinks, then, after failed conversation, detonate a smoke bomb and disappear into the shadows.
