D&W Lounge owner Keith Weyel told the Houston Press‘s John Nova Lomax last year he was “somewhat disappointed that the kids in the nearby new condos” hadn’t quite found their way yet to his bar just past the train tracks on Milby St., at the western edge of Eastwood. But Lomax doesn’t mind:
. . . to cater to the third shift at the coffee plant, the D&W Lounge opens at 7 AM. The interior is done up with pictures of Marilyn Monroe, statues of the Buddha, and a super-cool tin man hand-fashioned out of school cafeteria cans.
More evidence of the bar’s rough-and-tumble street cred: last month’s on-site fatal shooting.
***
Debbie Carson, the 60something barmaid, told us the place had been here when she was a little girl, although back then, it doubled as a hardware store and beer joint. “And now I work here!” she laughed. “Isn’t life funny?” Carson told us that in addition to the coffee-plant folks, their other regulars included homicide detectives and DAs.
- Sole Of Houston: East Side Story — Trains, Tequila, Dogs & Grief [Hair Balls]
- Deadly shooting erupts at Houston beer hall [Houston Chronicle]
- D&W Lounge [MySpace]
Photos: Jay Lee
Love the title! The D&W is cool…I’m an Eado transplant from a refinery town where bars had happy hours in the morning for the shift workers, and unlike Midtown/Washington bars, I feel right at home in the D&W. But the D&W brings an eclectic charm that I’ve found in no other “dive” bar inside the loop. In fact, thanks to this article, I think I may have a late breakfast at the Sesame Cafe tomorrow with a 16-ouncer of Bud, and follow up at the D&W. I can do it all on a $20 bill. Vacation rules. :D
http://www.yelp.com/biz/d-and-w-lounge-houston
I’m so dissapointed! When I saw this I thought these guys had gone on another new awesome (and long overdue) Sole of Houston trek, but was heartbroken to see this was a March 2009 article. D&W is great though – in college at UH down the road back in 1997-99 a group of us would go pretty regularly and sit on their side porch till closing time drinking super cheap Lone Stars and Domestic Light in cans. We stood out since we were the youngest people in there by probably 15 years and were a group of preppy looking white and hispanic frat guys, but everyone there was always as nice and welcoming as they could be.
@subprimelandguy: Our mistake. We’ve edited the story to make it clear Lomax’s visit and comments were from last year.
I have bartended in an after coffee, third shift bar before. Close to the Texas Instruments plant. Nice people. Not being a morning person myself, with or without beer, I only covered the regular bartender’s shifts. The morning crowd, though was the nicest of all of them. The rest were pretty rough.
That was about 22 years ago.
We got our third dog, indirectly, from the D&W. Our neighbor came home late one night from the D&W with this big white dog and proceeded to put it on our backyard with our dogs. (Fortunately they all got along.) Evidently the guy who brought the dog into the bar was hard up for beer money, and was trying to sell his watch at last call. The neighbor said “I don’t want your watch but I’ll take that dog” then proceeded to haggle him down to $7 for it. Long story short, we ended up with the dog, who turned out to have the sweetest disposition – perhaps he knows that he hit the jackpot. (He was malnourished and heartworm positive – now he’s a happy healthy boy.) So – thank you, D&W.