Giddy Ups, the Menchaca Road honky-tonk that’s hosted blues greats and country pickers for more than 25 years, will close in early August.
The venue announced the news on Facebook Sunday, citing a change in lease ownership. In an interview with the Chronicle, Michael Morgan – son of longtime owner Nancy M. Morgan, who passed away last year – said, “I wanted to extend Giddy Ups’ lease. I wasn’t really afforded that opportunity.”
As Morgan explained, Giddy Ups has been on a month-to-month lease since COVID, and its landlord opted to offer the space to someone else. “We’re not financially in trouble. We’re a profitable, established business. And that’s why it’s so strange to me why he would want to go with someone else,” he said.
The South Austin bar will honor its existing bookings for June and July, and said in the announcement that it plans to host a going-away party when its lease ends. “Our last weekend at this location will be an unforgettable ‘Out With A Bang’ party to celebrate the long history and the heart of Giddy Ups,” the crew wrote in the announcement.
On Facebook, Giddy Ups asked its followers for suggestions of for-rent spaces so the venue could reopen in a new location, but Morgan offered high interest rates and the existence of his own plumbing company, launched in 2020, as reasons he’s hesitant to start over.
“We’re not happy about leaving,” the post reads. “This whole situation feels more like a ‘yeehaw, out of here’ than a genuine step forward for the neighborhood. We call it gentrification and an unsatisfiable act of greed, you might call it progress – whatever the label, it means losing a piece of that ‘living room extension’ vibe as [a] neighborhood bar and concert venue, that Nancy M. Morgan built – simply a place where you can come as a stranger and leave as a friend.”
After bartending at Trophy’s (known these days as C-Boy’s Heart & Soul), Nancy M. Morgan started working at Giddy Ups in 1996, before the saloon had a liquor license or regular live music bookings. Under her stewardship, the bar – so surrounded by ranches that the building still offers a hitching post for attending cowboys to tie up their horses – began hosting music seven nights a week, from blues greats W.C. Clark and James Cotton to country traditionalists like Bob Appel.
As the Chronicle forecasted in 2023, awarding the venue a Best of Austin trophy for Oldest Bastion of Players and Pickers on Menchaca: “Giddy Ups requires preservation and a historical marker ASAP.”
This article appears in Best of Austin 2024 (Insert).
