Union Bear Celebrates National IPA Day; Scott Townend Headed to The Front Room

WEST VILLAGE—Union Bear dropped a little PSA on Facebook this afternoon by mentioning that tomorrow is National IPA Day and that it's never too early to start celebrating. Luckily, the Spillers Group's Uptown pizza and beer basement hangout has plenty on tap, including Deep Ellum IPA, Dogfish Head 90 Minute and Oskar Blues Deviant Dale's. [Eaterwire]

RIVERSIDE—DFW.com named its "2012 Hot Restaurants of Dallas" picks this morning with Tim Love's Woodshed Smokehouse taking the top honor due to the "chile in the kale salad" and Love's eschewing of "wimpy stovetop braising." A bit surprisingly, Trader Joe's also scored a spot just in time for this morning's contamination recall. Awk...ward. [DFW.com]

PARK CITIES—Slated to open sometime this month, Hotel Lumen's polysyllabic project The Front Room: A Park Cities Diner announced that Scott Townend (formerly of Craft) and Robert Brown (formerly of Private|Social) will be joining as Executive Chef and GM, respectively. [SIDE DISH]

[Photo: Union Bear/Facebook]