Almost from the beginning, Washington Avenue sports bar Sawyer Park was embattled.

There were the allegations of racial profiling at the door, a shooting nearby in 2011, the malleable dress codes, its "doucheoisie" clientele, a partial blinding of an employee, and the people who still missed its former life as the gluttonous Pig Stand.

On Tuesday night, everyone finally got the message that it was closed after four years of business, with a sign out front thanking patrons for their years of business. There was also a storage pod out front. An outgoing message on the club's answering machine thanked customers for the memories.

The bar's closure is just another nail in the coffin for this era of Washington Avenue. Closures and changes to bars have been rampant up and down the street.

REWIND:

What Has Happened to Washington Avenue?

The avenue was the subject of two Houston Press cover stories, "Wild on Washington" and "Getting Past the Bouncer," the latter investigating the claims of minorities that various high-falootin' bars around the city -- and many off Washington -- were discriminating against minorities at the door. "Bouncer" painted a pretty bleak picture of bar-and-patron relations.

The bar on the corner of Sawyer and Washington, just a block away from Beaver's, had a beautiful view of downtown -- that is, if you were lucky enough to pass inspection at the front door.

More »

OK, I'm sure this has been done before in your own time. But I got bored one day. Hey I live in Katy, Texas, so give me a break.

There I was, listening to a few dubstep mixes I have and I was staring at my phone just waiting for people to hit me up so we could head out for the night. It hit me if I had some drinks and chill with some people we wouldn't have to even go out and waste money on over priced drinks at the bars in Houston.

My brain went on a boredom tangent. A dubstep drinking game? Hell, why not?

More »

Is that you, Prince Eric?

We all wonder who our celebrity lookalike is. Someone will tell us we look like this person, a Web site will say you look like another and most likely if you're anything like me you'll disagree and give explanations as to why.

Well, what if you're already a celebrity? Or DJ?

Today DJs are setting trends in the way they dress, style their hair and just their look in general. We've heard of "Girls that look like Skrillex and a few more, but I decided to match up some of well-known DJs to their very own Disney doppelgangers.

After all, the EDM scene can get a little raunchy and hide subliminal messages or just simply throw it out there. As we have all heard and seen, Disney likes to do the same thing.

More »

Craig Hlavaty

Agora: Not reopening for a while.

Houston had quite a few bars close down in 2010. They were your favorite places to drink, mingle, talk to a conquest, bum a cigarette, and spend money you didn't have, and they all mostly left with whimper, or in one bar's case, about a dozen fire trucks.
For every dynamite bar opening this year - Barcadia, Grand Prize Bar, Fitzgerald's, Hefley's, Liberty Station, Moon Tower Inn, Royal Oak, any number of gastropubs - there was something of an equal and opposite bloodletting.

Most bars just coalesce into something else over time. It would have been hard for us to imagine a year ago that right now we would be craving rabbit and pheasant hot dogs, one of our favorite bars would play Motorhead, LCD Soundsystem, and Ke(dollar sign)ha in equal measures, and we would be playing skee-ball drunk in Midtown on a Tuesday.

In 2011 we can expect more openings, including the new location of Dirt Bar somewhere downtown (shhhhh!), the new Walter's (possibly off Tuam, but shhhh!), and rising of a wine and coffee bar near Natachee's on Main by the Island.

This time next year, we could be raving about a new haunt that serves gallon jugs of whiskey and plays Klaus Nomi and Ratt all day. A boy can dream.

More »

Craig Hlavaty

The jukebox at Grand Prize Bar. Note George Jones, ZZ Top, Lightnin' Hopkins, Prince...

Imagine that you have been frozen since September, or at least the beginning of the fall college semester. Or maybe you are an adult coming back to Houston to visit the folks, return Christmas presents, see friends and make bad decisions with people you forgot existed. Like that girl you worked with for a few years, but who always had a shithead boyfriend.

You more than likely have this Wednesday through next Sunday to hang in Houston and the suburbs before you have to go back to stupid real life full of teachers, bosses, live-in girlfriends and parole-officer visits. Rocks Off has a handy checklist for you to run through while you are here, so you can go back home and tell everyone how much their city sucks compared to Houston.

Did you know that other cities can't claim ZZ Top as their own? Isn't that messed up?

More »

Pull up a chair, start a tab and order a round of shots, because this is Rocks Off's weekly roundup of the goings-on in the Houston bar scene. Ups and downs, openings and closings, we will cover it all. Hit us up with any hot tips at craig.hlavaty@houstonpress.com.

Photos by Craig Hlavaty

Open Tab visited our first bar geared exclusively to karaoke on Friday night while he was in the first of the four costumes we would wear over the Halloween weekend. Yes, the Beebs was in full chubby, sweaty effect. It was a lazy outfit and we had the wig, so there.

Glitter Karaoke off Milam in Midtown is seemingly built for making embarrassing, regretful evenings a reality, and it is fun as hell to watch someone stumble through a Britney Spears song. We went for a birthday, so our friends got a free pass to be stupid, but the rest of you need to practice in your cars more.

And to the guy who sang two Creed songs? You're going to Hollywood.

More »

Photo by Craig Hlavaty

Agora Cafe, a popular Montrose drinking establishment and frequent hang-out for belly dancers, burned in a three-alarm blaze early Halloween morning. Our sister blog Hair Balls has tons of photos and the full report.

Photos by Craig Hlavaty

Thanks, God! The weather this week has been more hospitable than the past five months of hell you put us through, making it easier to drink and smoke outside without our sweat putting out our cigarettes. It's always nice to know you got our backs, except for the whole dead-family-dog thing, and taking away our favorite drunken comic, Greg Giraldo, last week was kinda harsh.

With the better weather, patio and outdoor drinking has skyrocketed all over town. People are even wearing hoodies to bars, for your sake. Our friend Danni was rocking one the other night and it was only 70 degrees. We have been told that once it's hoodie weather, it's time to put the jorts up, but that's just an old hipster's tale, like how you can't wear trucker hats anymore unless you have a huge metalhead beard.

Anyhow, this we week we visited a few new bars and got a chance to catch up with a few oldies while we were at it.

More »

Pull up a chair, start a tab and order a round of shots, because this is Rocks Off's weekly roundup of the goings-on in the Houston bar scene. Ups and downs, openings and closings, we will cover it all. Hit us up with any hot tips at craig.hlavaty@houstonpress.com.

Craig Hlavaty

During our travels last week, Rocks Off got to partake in the pleasure that is the Hideaway on Dunvale for steak night on Tuesday, which included the magical blues stylings of Rick Lee & The Night Owls. Lee and his band do ZZ Top, Bobby "Blue" Bland and B.B. King covers. We also witnessed the man playing his axe with the leg of a chair and licking the strings at one point. It was a good night for everyone, and we're sure the guitar had no complaints either.

Decades on Richmond is turning into Jackson's Watering Hole. The long-running gay bar is turning into what looks to be a Washington Avenue-style patio bar. The bar's Facebook page has been chronicling the changes every few days leading up to its re-opening this coming Thursday night. If we ever leave Grand Prize, stay tuned for a report in the next few days.

More »

Pull up a chair, start a tab and order a round of shots, because this is Rocks Off's weekly roundup of the goings-on in the Houston bar scene. Ups and downs, openings and closings, we will cover it all. Hit us up with any hot tips at craig.hlavaty@houstonpress.com.

Craig Hlavaty

Under the Volcano

Maybe it's age catching up with us, or just our inner fat kid coming out to play, but lately Open Tab has been trying to find bars with decent food to jam in our gullet before we drink. If it's not enough to go cover bars alone and drink in the corner watching the goings-on, we now get to eat alone. Hell, there is even a Tumblr site for it.

To that end we finally got to step up to the plate at Under The Volcano this past Monday night for their steak night, along with two or three Saint Arnold's pints. UTV's steak nights are a storied affair, and we were more than happy to belly up to a table solo to get down with a rib eye. After all, it did win "Best Steak Night" in last year's Best of Houston awards.

Sadly we had to forgo the free hot dogs that KC from Kay's Lounge had promised he would be having at his Bissonnet dive across the street. What do you think, a steak, mashed pots, salad, and flan or some free chili dogs? Open Tab can't answer that, honestly. KC, see you this Monday night.

More »