DewMoon

On 10/3/2017 at 2:19 PM, Reefmonkey said:

• The Official Preppy Handbook (published 1980) has a section on "where the preps are" each day of the week in several cities across the country, including Houston, and gives some good insight into Houston's bar scene in the late 70s. I was born in 1976, so I don't remember any of this, but below each entry from OPH I give a "where are they now" update as best as I can:

 

Monday

Roscoe’s Cafe & Jazzbar. 3230 Chimney Rock. Live Jazz, big name performers, Backgammon tables.

I never went to Roscoe’s and I don’t ever remember hearing about it. Now it’s a digital printing center.

Tuesday

Butera’s. 5019 Montrose. Deli, very casual, with millions of different beers. The place to be seen, but closes early at 8 p.m.

Butera’s had phenomenal sandwiches. My favorite was one with roasted portobella mushroom and red pepper slices. They were still open at least into the early 2000s, but have been closed for several years now.

Wednesday

St. Michel. 2150 Richmond. Jazz, very sophisticated atmosphere.

I never went there, never heard of it. It looks like now there is a fairly new building in that location filled with doctors offices.

Thursday

Kay’s Lounge. 2324 Bissonnet. Neighborhood bar with game room. Relaxed.

Ah Kays, I’ve been there several times, as has my wife, it’s one of many places in Houston we figured we probably just missed meeting each other before we finally met. My wife ended up stuck there during Tropical Storm Allison when her car got flooded in the street, two years before we met. This was also a favorite hangout of longtime Channel 13 ABC affiliate evening anchorman Dave Ward. It only closed last year (2016), and I think the building is still there and nothing has reopened in it yet.

Friday

The Hofbrau. 1803 Shepherd. Texas roadhouse for steaks and heavy imbibation. Fraternity hangout.

The Hofbrau is still there, I went a few times in the late 90s. It lost its cache, though in the mid 90s when Tilman Fertitta of Landry’s Restaurants chain bought it and turned it into a nationwide chain. That man is much despised here in the Houston area.

Saturday

The Cadillac Bar. 1802 Shepherd. Roast quail at this bar /restaurant. Famous for its Ramos Gin Fizzes.

The Cadillac Bar is still there, across the street from the Hofbrau, and it endured the exact same fate, also bought by the Landry’s group and its concept taken nationwide.

Sunday

Cody’s. 3400 Montrose. Top floor (10th) with great view. Key spot. Good jazz, dress code.

When I was young and single in the late 90s, early 00s, this location was called Scott Gertner’s Sky Bar, but other than that it was pretty much as described by the OPH. I took a lot of dates there, because you could step out of the bar and onto a patio on the 10th floor with great views to downtown, the Medical Center, etc. Dates that stopped there always went very well, if you know what I mean. Unfortunately, the bar closed maybe 10 years ago, and the building was razed. It’s now a luxury apartment highrise

 

Also, when I moved back to Houston after college in 1998, I lived in the old Westpoint Apartments on Westheimer and Fondren. My parents laughed that I lived there, because they remembered going to parties there when they first moved to Houston, young and childless, in the early 70s. They talked about there being a nightclub right there at the apartment complex called Barbary Coast.

 

Sorry, this website is acting really buggy today, I go to post or edit, and it tells me I can't, but then posts anyway, and I then try again before realizing it's now double posted.

Cadillac and Fitzgeralds, Dome Shadows, 2nd Office, cactus Club, O.P., ha even The Copa was entertaining lol, Art Wrens now that was a scream, lol... But after a few we'd just have to go "site seeing" lol, I think I miss The Palace and Pisces, most the places SW Houston and all along Westheimer but Damien's near River Oaks was nice and laid back. 

On 10/9/2017 at 4:23 PM, Chuck Allen said:

LMAO..I just by chance happened to land on this thread....I am an expert child of the 60's on this topic.    In the early 70's there were country bars and then there were honky tonks...    Houston has several of both but the most notable was the Fools Gold Club way out on the West side, out Westheimer, it was live music every night and the hopping place for country bars for many years.  For honkey tonks there's none bigger than my beloved Gilley's...I was there the day Sherwood shut her down.  We all cried.   It was an example of the excesses of the 80's in the end...especially in the glowing light of the movie, for a glorious while, it not only created the Urban Cowboy craze, but they rode it harder than a mechanical bull for the few short years it lasted.  Sherwood plowed the money into Gilliey's..  Leon Beck can probably talk to it better than me. It simply grew too big, and then Sherwood screwed Johnny Lee out of his road money. It started over Johnny wanting to buy some land after he married Charlene and then his band and Gilley's band reacted badly when they could not get paid, which started Gilley's imploding fast.   Big Tin Ban off Huffmeister was another great dance hall. There were also Saturday Night live music dances at the "Crosby Stomp" at the American Legion on 2100 in Crosby TX was most notable. I spent a lot of saturday nights there as a young un in the early 70's before I was old enough to mix with, fight with and drink with the Gilley rat crowd.

 

The later 70's would be the early days for ZZ Top, and many others at Rockefellers  or the Continental Club ( which might happen again at anytime today, also Rockefellers just reopened in 2017 as a venue again, it is a must check our concert venue), the Yesterdays Future and Yesterday Once More were disco clubs and there were a few more of them.   

Houston and Crosby Bug Tin Barn, Gilley's all the 70 thru 80's  lived it. Even the bars in the apartment complexes, bartended in alot, danced too. Good ol days. 

On 8/20/2017 at 1:03 PM, Richard Valley said:

Yes, those were truly the Good Ol' Days:  Gilley's, Bavarian Gardens, Catacombs, Love Street Light Circus & Feel Good Machine, Market Square, Elan (Ocean Club), 

Mom snuck me in to Love Street. I was a dancer aka extra and my friend's aunt was the choreographer for us, still have my costume tshirt Gilley's, he's in the movie and his friend too...Urban Cowboy. Catacombs, loved it. Liked The Ocean Club but Market Square, where was that?

On 7/19/2005 at 9:15 AM, Ashikaga said:

I also remember us going skating at a roller rink (1962-64) that I think was on IH-610 west of Gulfgate Shopping Center/Mall. Was there such a place in that vicinity? Or in this case, has my memory failed me?

Chet Cuccia

Hi was it called Cook's?