The bar taking over for Downtown’s shuttered State Bar and Lounge opened quietly yesterday. That’s pretty good timing for a new establishment in an older haunt that’s a flight up from street level: Lawless Kitchen and Spirits is now serving food and drink on the second floor and over-the-sidewalk perch of the Rice Lofts building, carved from the former Rice Hotel at the corner of Texas Ave. and Travis St.
Here’s the streetside balcony, a suitable platform for viewing traffic, parades, flooding, or anything else of interest —from a safe distance above ground:
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In a downpour, though, you’ll still have views:
Lawless is owned by the operators of the restaurant downstairs, Sambuca. But it sports entirely different food and drink menus.
- Sneak peek at bar replacing famed downtown lawyer watering hole [Houston Business Journal]
- Previously on Swamplot: The Rice Hotel’s Storied State Bar, a Favorite Among Lawyers, Will Soon Turn into a Lawless Kitchen; That Bar on the Rice Hotel Balcony Is Closing
Photos: Lawless Kitchen and Spirits
I remember back in 2001 going to a party at the Rice Hotel where Sambuca now is. It was not much more than a large industrial cavernous space. It was pretty epic. By 1 am we had emptied about 6-8 kegs and the entire length of where you would now dine at Sumbuca was hosed down and coated with Dawn soap for what amounted at the time to be the most epic game of all nude keg bowling downtown Houston had ever seen.
Dawn’s viral marketing game is on fleek.
This is the greatest two-comment thread in Swamplot history.