Once common, honky-tonks in Houston have largely gone the way of the pay phone. Seems the corner beer joint doesn't have much to offer an age of craft breweries, artisan cocktails and Internet jukeboxes. But for live country music at least, some of that honky-tonk spirit lives on in the capable hands of a family long known as premier stewards of Texas cookin'. The Goode Company's Upper Kirby restaurant, its dining room appointed like an old-school oilman's den, has been a popular spot to soak in Lone Star culture since 2004, but after a recent renovation the Palace is finally serving up live music as more than a side dish. Plowing under a parking lot to make way for a spacious biergarten-style patio, the owners also installed a small-ish stage that this year has hosted silver-haired legends Billy Joe Shaver and Joe Ely, and budding stars Bart Crow and Sam Riggs, just to name a few, with many more to come. Best of all, there's little danger of getting hit by a flying longneck here; some things can safely stay in the past.