DFW for 24 hours - what to do?

Arriving DFW 10:00 a.m. Thursday on an international flight and leaving next morning at 9:00 a.m the first week of May. I'll probably priceline the Hyatt DFW North. I've never been to the DFW area before (other than overnight at airport hotels) and would appreciate any suggestions on what might be interesting to do and places to eat (BBQ/steak preferred).


Thanks

Are you planning to get a rental car? Getting around DFW is hard without a car.

Near the airport, my BBQ pick is Hard Eight BBQ in Coppell.

For steak, there's a Bob's in Grapevine; I haven't been to that location, but the others are very good.

If you want to get away from the airport area, I'd wait until the date gets closer, and then check pegasusnews.com and dallasobserver.com to see what events may be going on.

There's some good shopping at Grapevine Mills Mall, just north of the airport.

If the Rangers are home, the Ballpark at Arlington is a fun place to see a game.

If you rent a car, go to Dealey Plaza or go to the museums in Fort Worth. Pick a city and spend the day there.

It depends a lot of what your interests are. If you go to Hard 8 BBQ as suggested prepare to smell like a smokehouse the rest of the day. Great BBQ, I live and work not far from there, but I always plan on going straight home after eating there and not out socially afterwards. You have to walk directly in front of the smoke pit to order your food.

When visiting Dallas you need to be aware that we are in road hell construction in and around the airport. Updates can be found on this website http://www.dfwconnector.com/index_flash.php. If you are going to go anywhere west of the airport like Grapevine, Southlake, Fort Worth I highly recommend you allow extra time and check out the traffic updates. If you head east to Dallas proper or northeast to Addison or Plano it won't be much of an issue once you clear the airport.

There is live music every night of the week in Dallas of nearly any type. You can find who is playing where at Pegasus News mentioned by Swag. http://www.pegasusnews.com/

There are a lot of restaurants and shopping in Southlake Town Square, twenty minutes from the airport, two hours if you go at the wrong time of the day or when a lot of lanes are closed.
http://www.southlaketownsquare.com/
Grapevine has a nice downtown, restaurants and clubs, 15 minutes from the airport, again two hours if it is rush hour and the lanes are jacked up.
http://www.downtowngrapevinetexas.com/
If you want to venture further west to Sundance Square you can burn an entire afternoon and evening in the area. Shops, bookstores, movie theater, coffee shops, restaurants and night clubs for later.
http://www.sundancesquare.com/
If you like festivals that Thursday is the start of Mayfest at Trinity Park.
http://www.pegasusnews.com/events/2011/may/05/222928/
The Dallas Arboretum is always beautiful to go to and Asleep at the Wheel is playing there that Thursday.
http://www.dallasarboretum.org/

North main BBQ in Euless is pretty good, its not that far from the airport but they are only open on the weekends

Good suggestions already, but personaly I'm fond of Fort Worth.

Trinity Railway Express will get you downtown Fort Worth or Dallas, though you have to take TWO shuttles from DFW (one to south parking lot, another to TRE)

Downtown Fort Worth is great, and if you buy a TRE ticket, you can take a bus from there to the Museum District (I've taken the bus in the past and it's quite safe).

Riscky's Barbeque downtown has good food and frozen margaritas to die for.

EmailKid

I'd tell you to take a bus to the Museum District (yes, it's super safe... it's where I live) and enjoy some time at any of the world-class museums there. Then walk across University to the newer W. 7th development where you can walk to a variety of shops (more than you'll find downtown) and many fabulous restaurants. There are several places along 7th where you can catch a bus back to downtown - or if it's a nice afternoon/evening and you enjoy walking, it's a lovely walk back to downtown crossing the river and such.

From another FW fan, I'll vote for the same choices (but would prefer an auto rental and maybe finishing the day with a visit to the Stockyards and dinner).

I'm sure the exaggeration was intended but just so our out of town visitor is in on the joke: there's no way it would ever take two hours to go from DFW to either Grapevine or Southlake.

Even if the 114/121 freeway is all jammed up because of the major construction project, 45 minutes at most, and that's if there's a bad accident too.

Of course by departing the airport via Airfield Drive instead of the 114 freeway there's really no reason to fight the traffic and construction mess at all. Just take Airfield Drive westbound to Main Street and then head north (for downtown Grapevine) or keep going further west until it becomes Mustang Drive; cross William D Tate Blvd. on Mustang and keep going NW bound on Mustang towards Highway 26 and Southlake.