Bring Your Dog to Saint Dane's Bar & Grille

From the name Saint Dane's Bar & Grille (502 Elgin, 713-807-7040) and the way dogs wander around like they own the place, you might guess the new place in Late Night Pie's old location is dog-friendly. You would be correct. One owner, Dustin Jones, has a Saint Bernard; another, Zack Truesdell, has a Great Dane. As Truesdell tells it: "One day, we were sitting around, deciding what to call it. We considered Brazos St. Grill, then Brazos Station, since it was originally an old gas station. My dog just had puppies and Dustin wanted one of them and said he was going to breed the Great Dane with the Saint Bernard, and that's when the name came to us."

"We want this place to be a neighborhood bar," says Truesdell, "nothing pretentious, where we know everyone by name, and a place that we would want to hang out in. Yes, we are dog-friendly and hope that the people in the neighborhood bring their dogs and kick back." Saint Dane's has a full menu, not just bar food. "We wanted to have the best food," says Truesdell, "so we tried everything many times before we got it right. We priced our food low, just to cover costs, and hope to make up the difference on the drinks." The menu and the prices are surprising. The calamari are some of the best in the city and a real bargain at $6. And for $5, the quesadillas with chicken were also incredibly good. On the Cafe Bites list of things to try: Saint Dane's chicken-fried steak and its catfish ($8 each).