The Wild Detectives

I’m not a particularly big fan of Dallas (sorry!) And I’m practically hostile towards anything that takes me away from my son right now (not sorry!). Yet last week I found myself improbably happy on a business trip to “Big D,” and it’s all because of The Wild Detectives, an incredible bookstore in the city’s offbeat Bishop Arts district.

The Wild Detectives is the product of a bold gamble between two friends – Spanish engineers Javier García del Moral and Paco Vique – who somehow ended up on simultaneous work assignments in Dallas and decided to turn their shared dream of opening a bookstore into reality. Named for a loose translation of Roberto Bolaño’s Los Detectives Salvajes, The Wild Detectives is a combination bookstore, bar, and event space with a residential exterior and an Oregon cabin interior. It also marries my love of books with my love of advertising; in 2017, the store partnered with local ad agency Dieste to create a clever campaign called LitBait that won two Cannes Lions.

But what I love most about The Wild Detectives isn’t its inspiring origin story, its advertising bona fides, or even the way it cannily combines boozing with book-buying – it’s the shop’s sense of purpose and ambition. According to The Wild Detective’s website:

“We want our space to encourage people to have a drink and talk to one another, to open up and share ideas, to hang out smartly, to engage in a conversation that will open new realities for them. That’s what talking culture does. It opens spaces that weren’t there before. Because culture accumulates into more culture.”

Never one to pass up a cultural opportunity, I popped The Wild Detectives’ address into Uber within an hour of landing in Dallas and cajoled my co-worker into coming along for the ride. It was our first week working on the same team, our first time traveling together. Yet as we sipped boozy cocktails in the store’s backyard, we began having the kind of meandering, idea-generating conversations that García and Vique wanted to spark. We covered family, religion, goals, insecurities, and everything in between, I walked out with some great books (Island Born and The Brownstone for Fig, Late in the Day for me), and we even got a recommendation for an awesome taco spot down the street (get the chicken tinga). It was (almost) enough to make me fall in love with Dallas, and it’s all thanks to this magical, thoughtful, and, yes, wild place.

So next time you’re in Dallas, skip the state fair (seriously, I can personally attest to there being few things in this world sadder than riding the monorail solo after downing an entire funnel cake!) and come here instead. Far more camaraderie, fewer calories.