D&W Inn
911 Milby
713-226-7039
As of this writing, this just might be the finest all-around dive bar inside the Loop; it's certainly the most off-the-radar one in the very shadows of downtown's talls. But its obscurity is likely temporary. Yuppie condos are encroaching; indeed, they are now in plain sight, and the owner is not shy about expressing interest in attracting their custom. Get over there now before the Yelp crowd clouds your judgment.
The D&W meets just about every criterion of a great dive: It's old — it evolved out of a neighborhood hardware/grocery store that opened in the 1930s. It's open every hour the law allows, and indeed, some days there's a line of thirsty people — mostly third-shift workers from the nearby coffee plant — outside the place at 7 a.m. There's a stolid assortment of regulars from the surrounding predominantly Mexican-American blue-collar neighborhood, and the jukebox is full of heartbreak sung in both Spanish and English. As a bonus, the D&W is hard by some train tracks, so you can almost always hear that lonesome whistle blow.
And then there is the decor. Owner Keith Weyel, the son of the late founder of the nearby Harrisburg Country Club, goes the extra mile beginning on the smoking porch, where there's comfy lawn furniture scattered among potted ferns and pissing cherubim. As for the interior — white with red and blue trim and a cut-out of Uncle Sam demanding "You!" come in and sing karaoke on weekends — it's eccentric, but hardly hints at what is within. The rococo interior is replete with paintings of Frida Kahlo and Marilyn Monroe and other starlets of Tinseltown's Golden Age, a big statue of the Buddha, a plastic Waylon Jennings figurine, and a robot made out of tin cans, fashioned by one of the regulars. A couple of the tables were salvaged from a vintage Wendy's; the inlaid Victorian newspapers brought back memories of post-Pop Warner football practices from 1980.
And there is a hint of danger, not so much from the men as the women. My wife and I once had to leave the D&W a little earlier than we might have wanted because a young woman decided she wanted to fight my wife, for no other reason than that she was a stranger around those parts. But there is also a strong element of law enforcement among the clientele — homicide detectives and DA's love to get together there to plot strategy and celebrate busts, and if there ever were to be a Houston version of The Wire, the D&W would be the Texan-ized Bunk's and McNulty's favorite bar, even if Jimmy would have to bring his own whiskey.
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The Dutchman
834 Wakefield Dr.
713-691-0228
Wakefield Drive is the dividing line between two venerable-by-Houston-standards subdivisions: the late-'40s, early-'50s developments Garden Oaks and Oak Forest. (In fact, one local wag calls the area GOOF.) Wakefield is one of the very few streets in Houston that lives up to its no-zoning ethos: Mechanic shops abut day cares which are next door to bars which are next door to antique shops which are next door to churches which are next door to more bars.
The Dutchman, a beer joint, is the granddaddy of all the Wakefield Drive nightspots. Ancient window-unit a/c's struggle to cool the wood-paneled, exposed brick interior, and the classic rock/honky-tonk jukebox passes the Gene Watson-Gary Stewart honky-tonk test with flying colors. At the U-shaped bar, a bearded, shaggy-haired guy in an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers work shirt was bantering with a Mexican man across the bar about whose truck had more rugged tires. It's a very friendly place. Before we knew it, a balding, mustachioed man had engaged us in conversation about the DWI's he'd gotten in the past. As punishment for one, he had been ordered to attend a course on alcohol and automobile safety.
"You shoulda seen the people comin' to that class," he chuckled. "Two of 'em came on bikes, two more came on roller skates and another guy came on a horse."
By and by, the man completed the course. "Yep, I graduated drunk-driving school. By rights, now they should give me a drunk-driver's license."
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TA's Cargo Club
3604 Mangum Rd. #B
713-957-2720
Margie, the fiftysomething co-owner of the Cargo Club, sits at a stool at her own sunken, compact bar, beneath a dropped ceiling that is, oddly, also vaulted. "It's a good thing we just painted these walls," she says. "Maybe that will stop 'em from talkin'." But there's nothing stopping her.
