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Never has the allure of the gritty been so masterfully accomplished as it is in Houston’s dive bars. What is it about these places that make them so popular? Is it the decidedly ramshackle appearance? Is it the odd mix of frantic frat boys and geriatrics? Oh, wait...it’s probably the cheap drinks. With the standard low dive bar prices and the fact that beer and hard liquor pour faster than Niagara Falls, getting sauced has never been so easy as it is in these groovy little haunts. And, because it just wouldn’t be drinking in Texas if rock and the blues weren’t involved, many of Houston’s greatest dives also double as Houston’s greatest blues bars. Raw voices, killer guitar notes and some serious soul add a distinct, down home feel to any establishment. Since these places manage to draw just about everyone, hipsters, hippies, punks and pros all have a hand in the ambiance.
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Cecil's
600 W. Gray St., Houston, Texas; Tel. 713.527.9101
The kind of place that you would take anybody for some easy drinking and a good time, Cecil's is a Houston neighborhood bar institution from back in the day. Unfortunately a small fire forced a change in their once dive bar décor, but Cecil's has lost none of that flavor and it's still the best place to grab a drink on the cheap and barstool philosophize with the regulars who span the entire Houston drinker spectrum. Also, audiophiles will still relish in Cecil's jukebox that has to be one of the best and most eclectically stocked in town. The front deck of Cecil's remains as one of the most chill places in Houston to kick it.
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Continental Club
3700 Main Street, Houston, Texas; Tel. 713.529.9899
The Continental Club serves up retro cool vintage styled hipsters and rockabilly punks with an undeniable laid back vibe. This Houston bar and live music club gets their kitschy rock on starting Monday with lounge steeped resident house band El Orbits and just doesn't quit after that featuring mostly local acts with some national tourers for flavor. Cheap drinks and plenty of them are the norm at the Continental Club and even though the suits crashed the regular bingo party, the big board still stands like a totem presiding over the cool chicks and hep cats making up the pantheon of regulars.
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Etta's Lounge
5120 Scott St., Houston, Texas; Tel. 713.528.2611
Etta's Lounge is a Houston blues club institution that's been rocking it with dive bar sensibilities for a darned long time. The mixed crowd, from older African Americans to curious student types all share the common goal of listening to seriously good live music while downing seriously cheap drinks—the winning combination that has kept Etta's Lounge in the black.
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Gallant Knight
2337 W. Holcombe Blvd., Houston, Texas; Tel. 713.665.9762
Serving Houston for over 20 years, the Gallant Knight's dark, dive bar style interior plays host to some serious down home R&B with local live music acts setting up among the crowds on the small stage four nights a week. The Gallant Knight is a hip place to hang with friends or flying solo and partake in some cocktails that seem like they where priced when this live music club opened and then forgotten about while grooving to the cool sounds in a world that too often is dominated by cookie-cutter DJs spinning their rhetoric in cookie-cutter clubs.
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Kay's Lounge
2324 Bissonnet St., Houston, Texas; Tel. 713.521.0010
Regular Joe's and Jane's make up the clientele of this venerable Houston neighborhood dive bar. Kay's Lounge has been serving patrons for one heck of a long time and judging by today's crowds, shows no signs of slowing down the pool, darts, sports and beer soaked party. Also, Kay's Lounge features live acoustic music on Wednesday nights.
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Leon's Lounge
1006 McGowen St., Houston, Texas; Tel. 713.659.3052
Cheap drinks and country music are the hallmarks of this Houston dive bar that has been continually operating seemingly since before Houston was even a city. At Leon's Lounge, shift workers rub elbows with Houston hipsters into the dive bar vibe and getting plastered on dollar beers. Leon's Lounge offers some non-drinking diversions such as a pool table and a piano—wait we suppose those could both be considered drink fueled diversions, but we digress—and this Houston dive bar has the best taxidermied décor around, like a slap in the face to PETA types.
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Lizzard's Pub
2715 Sackett St., Houston, Texas; Tel. 713.529.4610
With a homey, lived-in quality second to none, Lizzard's Pub is one of the most accommodating Houston neighborhood bars around. You can catch the game here, down some cheaper than usual drinks, and shoot some pool or lounge on one of the back room sofas. Lizzard's Pub caters to a diverse, amicable crowd that likes just sipping drinks and full blown partying equally and this Houston bar really cements the notion that even if you come alone, you're going to leave with friends.
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Lola's
2327 Grant Street, Houston, Texas; Tel. 713.528.8342
Lola's is venerable Houston dive bar that serves as a home away from home for the cities hard partying, tattooed rock and punk set. Lola's pours itsdrinks hard and fast with prices purposefully stuck on the extreme low end of the spectrum. This Houston dive bar can be a little hard to spot, but those in the know will be streaming in and out all night long so just look for the piercings and skateboards and follow.
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Lone Star Saloon
1900 Travis, Houston, Texas; Tel. 713.757.1616
No bigger than a double wide, but overflowing with Houston dive bar sensibilities and charm, the Lone Star Saloon starts getting packed in the early afternoon with people seeking some down home, unpretentious liquid solace in otherwise tony surroundings. The Lone Star Saloon is a great Houston dive bar to start the night out at or more likely end the evening in and they sport one of the best jukeboxes in town. No matter what time you roll through, the drinks are gonna be cheap, the crowd's gonna be loud and the attitude is gonna non-freakin'-existent.
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Marquis II
2631 Bissonnet St., Houston, Texas; Tel. 713.522.2090
A classic Houston dive bar, the Marquis II is filled with your normal geriatric dive bar denizens during the day that give way later to college kids and twenty-somethings getting their nightly bender on. Speaking of which, that elusive good drunken buzz you try to achieve at some other Houston bars ain't so elusive at Marquis II. They pour the most dangerous Long Islands for the ridiculously low price of $4.50, assuredly the cheapest in Houston, and keep pouring those mind warping, liver destroying concoctions until you're freakin' cross-eyed and you miss your freakin' deadline and get chewed out by your boss for three freakin' hours while your head's pounding and—oh wait, that's just us. Um, uh, yeah Houston, um, great bar!
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Poison Girl
1641-B Westheimer Rd., Houston, Texas; Tel. 713.527.9929
Hands down, dive bars are our favorite joints to get sauced in and Poison Girl in Houston is no slouch when it comes to providing good, clean dive bar fun. There's a few pinball machines, cheap, heavy drinks, a hip cast of urban bohemians bellied up to the bar and a killer jukebox—this one being heavily, okay totally, steeped in all music Texas, from country to punk, rockabilly, indie and some hip-hop. Poison Girl brings to the Houston bar scene exactly what it seemed to be so lacking in, a dive bar that knows it's a dive bar and doesn't want to be anything more than that.
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Roll-N Saloon
4200 San Felipe St., Houston, Texas; Tel. 713.622.7487
A curious mix of dive bar denizens inhabits the smallish confines of the Roll-N saloon, a great Houston dive bar in the mold of ones popular half a century ago. Several times a night trains go rumbling down the nearby tracks and the Roll-N Saloon takes full advantage by offering the nothing short of inspired train shots for only a buck—now several trains roll by in the course of an evening, so getting sauced on the cheap, which is the hallmark of all great dive bars, is a shade easier at the Roll-N saloon.
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Ruthie's
1829 Richmond, Houston, Texas; Tel. 713.522.7240
Although the exterior of Ruthie's has undergone a facelift, the interior and attitude at this Houston dive bar is blessedly the same. Featuring a slew of beer to accompany its pool tables and killer jukebox is how Ruthie's keeps its regulars coming back daily and nightly—or it could be the pin-up girls adorning the men's room walls.
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Walter's on Washington
4215 Washington Ave., Houston, Texas; Tel. 713.864.2727
Walter's on Washington pours the drinks stiff for the good time, partying Houston dive bar denizens that flock in for the aforementioned dangerous cocktails and some local country, blues and rock live music acts. The early evenings are mildly slower at Walter's when regulars converse and shoot pool to the soulful backdrop of trains rumbling by bound for digs other than Houston.
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