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New Years in Houston and how to celebrate
taco144
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I am more of a lurker, but I figure I'll give this a shot. So, the Navy is paying for a trip to Houston to watch Navy in the Texas Bowl and the game is over new years. However, my friends and I dont know anyone in Houston to party with or where to even go. Is anyone here from Houston who knows about the nightlife? We are looking for a college party/bar experience and we are staying in the four seasons down town. Any ideas?
taco144 on
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Downtown you'll get a lot more of a club/bar type scene.
If you go to the Rice Village there's a lot of college type bars. When I was younger, pretty much everyone home from college in the area would go there.
My friends who still live in Texas would know better. I'll try and get some feedback from them and add more to this.
There's also a blues bar/dive I like a few blocks up and over on Kirby called The Big Easy.
Downtown is a good mix of hole-in-the-walls where you can get excellent beer, and clubs that will charge you $100+ just to get in the door on New Year's Eve. That said, you can have some crazy fun times if you're willing to pay - I did New Year's at a club called Rich's last year (granted we knew people who worked there, so we didn't have to pay for our table and the champagne - we got lucky) and it was insanely fun. But also just plain insane. Downtown attracts a wide variety of crowds and age ranges.
Midtown, which is next door to downtown, has some great chill bars but most of the bars have the "college" feel. Shot Bar, Red Door (where you'll get turned away if you aren't wearing the right kind of shoes) can be fun if you're with the right people. I think me and oldsak differ on what we mean by "college" bars - to me it means a bar where it's packed and they will occasionally play songs from your middle school years that you know all the words to and every 15 minutes you are expected to buy a shot and everyone is semi-dressed up (not dressed up for a club, but also in a t-shirt and jeans). The age range tends to be low to mid 20s, rarely will you see someone 30+ at these bars.
Washington is sort of the "Wild West" of Houston bars right now, it's a scene that JUST popped up over the past summer (probably 20 or so new bars in the space of a few months) and it CAN be a lot of fun, though I've gotten burned at a couple of places. (do NOT go to Nox) The nice thing about this area is that there are a ton of very different bars clustered very closely, so you could window-shop before settling on a place that night. The downside is that, thanks to the lack of zoning laws, it borders on a very sketchy area of town. Just be safe in this area, take cabs, and don't walk down any side streets - stay on Washington street. Age range is all types, but tends toward a younger, under-30 crowd.
My best piece of advice is that you show up at a place a little early-ish and then STAY there. It is absolutely insane to try to find a place after 11 p.m. - the people working the door at bars will start charging unbelievable covers and then just pocketing the difference, because they KNOW at that point you don't have time to go to another spot.
If you pick a specific area I can give you some advice for bars in that area. Honestly I'd probably recommend the Midtown area, based on what you were saying you wanted.
edit: And uhhh for all I've said that the bar scene is fun... I'm likely going to do a house party for New Year's. BUT IT'S STILL FUN!
http://www.mcgonigels.com/
Draws an older crowd, though. I hate meat markets so, for me, eating bangers and mash, pounding pints of the black stuff while listening to live music is fine by me instead of trying to find skanky mc-skankerton #254.
Margaret Thatcher
As a final note, since it sounds like you will be with some guy friends: You need to make sure you turn up a bit early wherever you're going, because you are a guy and guys have a very hard time getting in to popular "party-type" places after a certain time, if they don't have any attractive women with them. If you show up late, be prepared to pay a "double cover", i.e. you're gonna have to bribe the doorman if you want to get in. And since it's New Years and he knows you're desperate to get in, he will expect OBSCENE amounts from you. That's why you don't want to leave if you don't get a bracelet or stamp, because as a guy it will be really tough to get back in. (depending on the hour)
That's the thing about a lot of the party/college-style places I talked about in my last post - they are really bad about making groups of guys wait in line. It's annoying, especially as a girl with a lot of guy friends, because I quite simply can't just meet my guy friends at bars to hang out - I have to get there with them or they'll never freaking get in.