Here’s some hot and heavy demo footage of a frenzied excavator tearing apart the former Blanco’s Bar and Grill at 3406 W. Alabama St. this morning, as a worker hoses down the scene from off to the side. A reader captured the final show at the little blue honky-tonk, which housed live music for nearly 32 years before its November 2013 closure.
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The land beneath Blanco’s was purchased earlier in 2013 by St. John’s School, as an addition to the school’s campus holdings at the corner of Westheimer Rd. and Buffalo Spdwy. The 13-acre tract, sold to St. John’s by an heir of Ben Taub, also previously harbored the River Oaks Plant House, whose topiary menagerie was shooed off of the median strip at the corner with Westheimer by the start of 2014.
- The Last Dance for Blanco’s: Houston’s Only Old-School Honky-Tonk Closes Its Doors [Houston Press]
- Previously on Swamplot: River Oaks Honky-Tonk Blanco’s To Close, Look for New Location; Prep School Buys Honky-Tonk: Will Blanco’s Go Blank?
Video: Swamplot inbox
I want that job.
Sad day. I fondly remember Blanco’s as the last standout true honky tonk in town. It outlived the monsters on the Richmond strip but was done in by the lethal combination of gentrification and Houston’s broken public schools.
This is sad to see, just as sad as the fact that they are tearing down Tin Hall in Cypress. I was part of a group that performed at Blanco’s many times in the latter 80’s and also in the 90’s. Lots of fun memories from there. My husband is in a band, Driftwood, that played there often in the past few years. The staff was wonderful, and so was the clientele. Hate to see this place close, even worse that its TORN DOWN. Sad day.
We had our older son’s bar mitzvah party at Blanco’s. It was great: perfect scale, so easy, affordable, plenty of parking, two porches, just right in every way, and the Yankee grandparents, aunties, uncles and cousins were thrilled by the decor and ambience. Vaya con Dios, Blanco’s.
Makes me sad too, though I drank way too many Shiners there.