High Noon

East Austin Bar High Noon Opens With To-Go Cocktails This September | Eater Austin

"After being thwarted twice by pandemic-related shutdowns, the long-awaited East Austin bar High Noon from the team behind honky-tonk club White Horse and ’70s bar Kitty Cohen’s finally opens Friday, September 11 at 2000 East Cesar Chavez. The partnership between Nathan Hill (White Horse, Stay Gold), Jeremy Murray (Blackheart, Kitty Cohen’s) and Matt Rade (Blackheart, Kitty Cohen’s) will offer both on-site and to-go service, with a walk-up station at the bar serving mixed drinks, beer, whiskeys (Murray and Rade’s now-closed Blackheart was known for its whiskey selection) and mezcal. To-go options are intentionally limited to three drinks — a beet paloma and two frozen cocktails (one a margarita) — because the team worried about translating bar-quality drinks to takeout (ice, temperature, glassware, garnish, etc.). Thai Kun, the food truck (whose partnership still involves chef Paul Qui), will be parked on the patio and live music is planned eventually. Designed by Mickie Spencer to feel “a traditional Western saloon meets Kubrick” — an early 1900s saloon with a touch of peyote in West Texas — the interior includes Rubik’s Cube–like ceiling tiles, a long red banquette, wooden floors, a stretched-out oval mirror lined with lights behind the bar, draped curtains and a large bubble window facing the street. COVID-19 precautions include UV air purifiers, sanitation stations and a mask requirement when not seated. The bar’s opening was made possible by a Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission amendment allowing bars to partner with food trucks to obtain food-and-beverage certificates, and it notably passed inspection at 11:50 a.m. on June 26 — just before Governor Abbott ordered bars to shut at noon — and will operate daily from 4 p.m. to midnight." - Erin Russell