Bar Memoriam, Volume 1: Kay's Lounge
Many of the taverns from my dive bar book have closed. Here is one of them.
Kay’s Lounge
2324 Bissonnet
Now in its 70th year, Kay’s is one of the oldest bars in town and it shows. The walls have accreted beer- and sports-related memorabilia over the years as if by some strange cavern-like natural phenomenon. It just never seems to change in there once your behind the glass-brick windows, though it does – the new owner scraped decades of grime off the walls and ceilings and added liquor to the drinks menu. And the beer garden out front – there are no so many picnic tables in the parking lot it looks like a concrete icehouse – offers ample haven for the nicotine fiends.
The décor is uber-Texas, with an immense Texas-shaped table taking pride of place in the front room. (Darts, foosball and pool are options hidden in the periphery of the joint.) The jukebox is Internet, which caused us to mentally deduct points until we heard it play Willie Nelson, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Jerry Jeff Walker in rapid succession, so maybe those things aren’t always all bad, if controlled by careful conservators.
Oddly for a dive bar inside the Loop, Kay’s has no dedicated contingent of hipster fans – nothing in the vicinity of Rice Village does – so if that bothers you, head north and east toward Montrose. And thankfully, it’s also mostly douchebag-free, too. Instead, Kay’s caters primarily to button-down good-ol’boys and the women who love them, and it has since the early ‘80s, when it was listed as one of America’s best bars in that groundbreaking sociological study The Preppy Handbook.
2021 Epilogue: Condos.
Loved Kay's - Long time (51 years) Houston news anchor Dave Ward was a regular there. I was lucky enough to have a few beers with him.
I'm having my wife buy that dive bar book for me. I don't have my own amazon account. It would be dangerous. I am a notorious night time (after a couple bourbons) impulse buyer.
Sorry I missed Kay's during my drinking heyday, one of few I did miss.