The longtime music space at 711 Red River Street, formerly Beerland and currently the Green Jay, will soon become the 13th Floor.
The 13th Floor – an Eastside rock & roll bar since 2018 – plans to relocate to the Red River Cultural District space in early September. With the major expansion in square footage, 13th Floor co-owners Jake Garcia and Nick Yaklin plan to continue their bar’s vinyl lounge concept with additional live music. The first show under the bar’s new management will take place September 3, featuring Christian Bland & the Revelators, Daiistar, Narrow Haunts, and Majical Powers – the latter of which both of the owners play in.
As a member of the Black Angels, Garcia will host a release party at the new space for the reigning Austin psych band’s new album, Wilderness of Mirrors, on September 16. He’ll continue the club’s participation in Levitation, October 27-30, which was founded by his Angels bandmates. He also plans to cover the walls with posters from the festival’s archives.
“Being a traveling musician, I had the chance to go to all these places like Paris, Madrid, and small cities in different countries,” said Garcia, speaking to the Chronicle on Saturday. “They always had a cool little rock & roll bar. I thought, well, Austin doesn’t really have that. It would be really cool to concentrate on the culture of where psychedelic music began, here.
“So, this is our dedication to Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators and the Golden Dawn. We’re linked with all of these other rock & roll bars around the world, and we stay in contact.”
At their current space on 1812 East 12th Street, the 13th Floor quietly opened on March 3, 2018, as a go-to after-party destination for rock musicians to spin vinyl offstage. Garcia lists visitors/guest DJs like Arctic Monkeys, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Belle and Sebastian, and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. The small space generally only accommodated stripped-down performances, like Gus Baldwin’s Mondays bookings, as well as squished sets atop the bar by bands like Sailor Poon.
Despite a gig poster for the outgoing 13th Floor’s final night (this Wednesday, August 31) reading “Fuck Condos,” there’s no imminent plans of development for the Eastside building. In 2020, former landlord Gene Mays sold the business to Dallas’ Eureka Holdings, which bought up over 100 properties on the historic street. Of the 2020 change in landlords, Garcia says: “I don’t want to be a jerk, but it’s kind of like going from talking to a human to a robot. It’s more corporate.”
Johnny Yaklin – who opened the 13th Floor with his brother Nick Yaklin and Garcia – actually has plans to continue use of the Eastside bar as a new concept. The building is currently on a month-to-month lease. Johnny will step back from ownership of the new location to focus on continued operations at Kinda Tropical, as well as the KT team’s reopening of the former Spider House Cafe space.
At the new 13th Floor location on Red River, Nick Yaklin and Garcia take over a multi-year lease from the outgoing Green Jay management. In January 2020, Stubb’s GM Ryan Garrett and business partner Ned Stewart opened a newly renovated edition of the bar, changing the name from Beerland to the Green Jay later that year.
Prior, longtime punk hub Beerland closed unexpectedly in 2019 during an employee strike over unpaid wages from former owner Richard Lynn. Workers were paid back by community fundraising – overseen by Donya Stockton, who co-founded the bar with husband Randall in 2001 – as well as contributions from Lynn’s family. A regular player in the Beerland scene, Garcia fondly remembers meeting his BFF/business partner Nick Yaklin at the storied venue.
The new 13th Floor will open seven days a week, concentrating live music on weekends with plans to work with other promoters beyond Garcia’s bookings.
“We’ll have traveling bands with local bands, together,” he explains. “We’re still in the beginning phases, but we’re ready to expand this place. It’ll just be [the old bar] times four, basically, and with a stage, and a drum set! We couldn’t really fit that stuff before.”
This article appears in August 26 • 2022.