The State Fair of Texas is a massive event that brings in $350 million to the city’s economy annually and has been held at the Fair Park since 1886. The fair begins in late September and ends in the middle of October. The fair is known for its unique albeit high-fat foods. Some popular food items include Fletcher’s brand corny dogs, deep fried oreos, deep fried Twinkies, deep fried pork ribs, fried cheesecake, deep fried peanut butter and jelly and banana sandwiches and most recently batter based fried coke. In 2007 the theme of the fair was “The Sky’s the Limit.”

The cuisine in Dallas is known for its barbecue, authentic Mexican and Tex-Mex Cuisine. Some of the famous items in Dallas are the frozen margarita, restaurants known as La Calle Doce, Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse, Enchilada’s, Mi Cocina, Bone Daddy’s Barbecue and The Mansion on Turtle Creek. O average residents of Dallas eat out four times a week which is the third highest in the country, behind two other Texas cities – Houston and Austin. Dallas has more restaurants per capita than New York City.

Dallas is home to Texas’s first and largest zoo at 95 acres which opened in 1888. The Dallas Zoo has about 1,800 animals on zoo grounds with another 4-5000 animals at The Dallas Aquarium in Fair Park. In March 2004 a gorilla injured four visitors by scaling a retaining wall. The gorilla was brutally shot by the SWAT team after the incident.

The Dallas metroplex has more shopping centers per capital than any other United States city and is home to the second shopping mall in the United States that opened in 1931. Dallas is home to 12 billionaires making it the 9th worldwide among cities with the most billionaires.