I firmly believe in travel that’s tethered to something. Instead of packing your bags and filling your schedule with a tourist’s checklist of roadside attractions, why not see a place through the eyes of the people who live there? This can be done in a lot of different ways. Some folks choose golf or fishing, while others choose art museums or high-end restaurants.
Based on the title of this article, you’ve probably guessed that I love to travel via dive bars, and Texas is one of the best states to do so. Why is that? Thousands of German and Czech immigrants settled in Central and South Texas more than 100 years ago and, to no one’s surprise, they enjoyed their beer and needed establishments to provide the bar upon which a cold one could sit. Voila, Texas dives are born.
Just drive through a town like Flatonia or Moravia and you’ll see that the local watering hole is the bedrock for many communities in the area.
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Ultimately, these joints were more than a bar. Just drive around Central Texas and you’ll see that many of these one-stop-light towns (or zero-stop-light, for that matter) were built around two places—a church and a bar—with each serving many of the same purposes in wildly different forms. Their patrons overlapped quite a bit, too. Just drive through a town like Flatonia or Moravia and you’ll see that the local watering hole is the bedrock for many communities in the area. And that’s why the dive bar is the perfect way to tour the state of Texas.
Before we dive in, I’d like to attempt to define it. There’s no set criteria that makes a dive bar a dive bar—it’s one of those places where you know it when you see it—but here are a few clues:
- If it’s named after the town or the person who owns it, it’s probably a dive bar.
- If they accept cash and only cash, it’s probably a dive bar.
- If the regulars hold up the business as much as the rafters, it’s probably a dive bar.
- If those same regulars ignore indoor smoking regulations, it’s probably a dive bar.
- If the neon hasn’t been dusted since the Reagan administration, it’s probably a dive bar.
- If they look at you funny when you order a craft IPA or negroni, it’s probably a dive bar.
The list could go on and on, but you get the idea. Ultimately, if it’s old and local and decidedly untrendy, you’re probably on the right track.
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Ultimately, if it’s old and local and decidedly untrendy, you’re probably on the right track.
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Now that the definition is muddy as hell, let’s hit the road. I’ve compiled a list of my favorite joints across Central Texas but, as you’ll soon learn, there are far too many for me to cover here. I highly recommend following this list, but I also recommend going off the beaten path and picking your own roadside watering holes—that’s half the fun. In the meantime, maybe these 10 stops will be enough to wet your whistle before you can make your own list.
I’ve built out this particular list in a horseshoe-esque shape, starting on the northwest side, moving south then east then back north again. Depending on where you’re venturing from, pivot your starting location to your liking. There’s no wrong way to do this.
To start phase one of our thirsty tour of Texas, we’re getting a little historical. It may sound cliché, but you can’t do a dive-bar tour without running through legendary Luckenbach, Texas, which is more of a venue than a town. I don’t need to explain why this place is important—Willie and the boys can do that—but this is a great place to start your journey. On your way out, head a little east and swing by Albert Ice House, a classic indoor/outdoor spot for live music and two-stepping the night away.
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In phase two, we’re headed east and south, starting with Zelick’s Ice House, a perfectly imperfect dive situated in an old gas station, giving a glimpse into what a depression-era icehouse felt like. Speaking of the depression-era, be sure to run by the unassuming-yet-unforgettable Riley’s Tavern, which happens to be the first bar in Texas to get its license after prohibition was repealed in the 1930s (that allows them to claim “the oldest bar in Texas,” which is only believable if you squint pretty hard). Lastly, we’ll cap off this section with another touristy stop at Gruene Hall. Yes, it’ll probably be crowded. Yes, it’s a bit of a tourist trap. But, everyone’s got to see the oldest dancehall in Texas once, and it still oozes the same character it did when it was built in 1878.