Where Locals Drink and History Persists

Exploring Houston's Ice House Culture

Let me tell you about my favorite ice house in Houston, Texas. Also, let me tell your about my least favorite.

But first let me tell you a bit about Texas ice houses in general. Then what follows may make more sense.

Ice houses have been around nationally since the early 19th century, when a Bostonian named Frederick Tudor figured out that he could build an empire by cutting ice from New England ponds in winter and shipping this everywhere in insulated ships — as far as India, in fact. Starting in 1806, ice was regularly offloaded at ports along the East and Gulf coasts, whereupon it immediately went into ice houses that had been heavily insulated with sawdust. Massive blocks of ice could be warehoused through summer, when eager customers would pay dearly for crystal chill. Ice houses cropped up in many neighborhoods, and residents would come by and purchase smaller blocks of ice to use in their home ice boxes, or to make juleps and ice cream.

Many ice houses evolved to become informal community centers. One could find cold beer there, and logic suggested that it was foolish to bring a bottle home when you could drink your beer right there and then have a second and third, just as cold as the first. And before heading home, why not pick up some household supplies — butter, milk, eggs, more beer? Ice houses evolved into both beer bars and convenience stores.

The sales of block ice had a good run for over a century, but with the rise of mechanical refrigeration starting in the early 20th century, that market began to dry up. Ice houses that didn’t shutter became bars or convenience stores. (Side note: In 1927, several Dallas ice houses consolidated as the Southland Ice Company. In 1946, the company expanded its operating hours and then renamed itself 7-Eleven to reflect that.)

By mid-century, “ice house” in Texas had become a synonym for an informal neighborhood beer bar, typically situated within open garage doors. In the 1999 Pocket Guide to Best Texas Ice Houses, the author described them as the “private club of the working class” — which sounds very appealing, although I’m not sure exactly what it means.

Many of these places failed, overtaken by modernity. But some evolved and survived. A new crop of bars has surfaced calling themselves “ice houses,” although all they really have in common with the originals is open garage doors.

At least one Houston ice house has remained largely unchanged. That’s my favorite:

APPROVE: Sheffields Ice House

Sheffields is located south of downtown Houston in a neighborhood that has neither benefited nor suffered from recent gentrification. It’s not far from where two major highways intersect, but that’s not saying much since that defines pretty much all of Houston. The bar is on Telephone Road, which got its name because that’s where the telephone lines into town once ran.

Sheffields is located across from Global Mattress and Furniture, and next to A Plus Retail (mattresses, new and used furniture). The garage doors open onto a charmless and busy street, and a small bar is located just inside. An adjacent room has a pool table, in which the balls are faded and discolored. Beers on offer are canned or bottled, and the choice is limited. (I got a Corona, with a lime wedge.)

Sheffields opened as an ice house in 1942 and is a museum of pre-air-conditioning technology: wide open doors, bar seats under shady overhangs, and fans just about everywhere. I posted up next to an massive fan near the pool table housed in a homemade cage of rebar. It was about five feet in diameter, and I’m pretty sure it could take the building to 20,000 feet if only the building had wings.

This remains a local spot, with a local clientele. I wasn’t a local but was made welcome, perhaps because I arrived with my dog whom everyone wanted to pet and so nobody really noticed me. It was free of hipsters when I visited — it had the feel of a Mexican cantina on a dusty side street — and it seemed telling that only eight Yelp reviews have ever been posted. (“Definitely open,” raved one reviewer. “None of that prissy crap,” enthused another.)

I rank this my favorite not necessarily because it’s where I’d want to hang out during my every free moment, but because its mere persistence gave me hope. The place was full of local life late on a weekday afternoon, and the pool table was cracking and people were talking in English and Spanish about the Final Four and other sportsball things. In an era when dive bars are closing by the dozen, Sheffields seems poised to continue making good on the slogan on the sign outside: “Helping Ugly People Have Sex Since 1942.”

Which brings me to my least favorite spot:

DO NOT APPROVE: Sawyer Ice House.

I stopped by last weekend for a beer. I left without finishing it. Sawyer opened in 2023 in a new building in one of those pop-up neighborhoods that appear in former light industrial areas that had become sad and disused as businesses moved to the outer rings of suburbs in pursuit of cheaper real estate. It’s next to Sawyer Yards, a complex of artist studios and more built on a former rail yard. (“Sawyer Yards continues to punctuate its campus with craft breweries, unique fitness concepts, fine dining, and entertainment venues”) and across from Bellrock Sawyer Yards, a large new apartment complex (“spa-inspired bathrooms,” “brushed gold plumbing fixtures”).

Although it’s an ice house in name, I seriously doubt that a block of ice has ever come near this place. It was open and cavernous and had a lot of loud bro energy, and the inside was lined with eight large screen televisions, and one drive-in sized screen. All were showing basketball.

Sawyer has 40 beers on tap, which you can learn about by scanning a QR code. If you can get a cell signal, which I couldn’t. I asked the bartender, who kept calling me “brother,” if they had Wi-Fi. They did. If you need the password for future reference, it’s easy to remember: “9ndzxxjxhpvn.”

There’s a sunny outdoor seating area just outside the garage doors. Those and buckets of beer are the only things in common with an historic ice house. I’m not much to point my finger and make charges of cultural appropriation — I’m usually a fan of cultural collision and synthesis — but calling this an ice house seemed a textbook example of bad faith marketing. I mean, call it a sports bar and we’d all be good.

And I suppose if I were actually looking for a sports bar, I might not have been disappointed. But I was in search of ice houses and local history and patina. Sawyer Ice House did not deliver.

Other Recommended Spots

I’ve lived in Houston for just five months and am still finding my way around. But here are a few other joints I can recommend:

D&T’s Drive Inn

This quiet spot opened in the residential Heights neighborhood in 1959. (Historical note: as ice houses converted to general stores, they often changed their names to “drive in” to sound more modern.) There’s a large and heavy red door next to the open garage bay — that’s where you would have picked up your ice to take home. The business changed hands and was updated 15 years ago, and there’s a solid selection of craft beer on tap.

During the remodel, they installed a long bar made of wide slabs from a single tree, apparently oak. It wasn’t fully dry when installed, so it’s become cupped down the middle, like a gentle swale from one end to the other. “I don’t mind because if someone spills their beer, it’s easy to clean up,” the bartender told me.

Outside seating is in the back, a deranged-hoarder-sized collection of baseball bobbleheads sits on a shelf above the taps, and at 1 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon, “I Will Survive” and “Disco Inferno” were blaring, suggesting that all was right with the world despite the news headlines I scanned on my phone.

“It’s a quiet neighborhood place,” the bartender said. “If you know, you know.”

West Alabama Ice House

This ice house is without doubt the best known of all the historic ice houses in Houston. When it was built on West Alabama Avenue in 1928, it was on a dirt road at the edge of town. It hasn’t moved, but the Montrose neighborhood grew up around it, and then Montrose became Houston’s most hip neighborhood. West Alabama Ice House’s importance as a community center has persisted, and it somehow has maintained a scruffy local vibe. This is not the least diminished by the cinder block and concrete construction and the dung-brown colored picnic tables.

You can play pool or cornhole, or sit at tables under cover or in the sun and rain. The place is mostly open air, and a battery of industrial-sized fans allows patrons to escape certain death during the ruthless summer.

The ice house attracts everyone from construction workers building the bland and boxy townhouses nearby to rugby shirt-wearing students from Rice University. Purists insist that ice houses should only serve beer in bottles and cans, but the draft beer game is on point here, and who is going to argue with a classic place like this? On my last visit, they had four or five stouts and porters on tap, and at least one group of folks was singing along to Billy Currington’s cover of Jimmy Buffett’s “Like My Dog.” This made for a good Thursday evening.

Bobcat Teddy’s Ice House

Another characteristic that ice house purists insist on is that no mixed drinks be served. It’s an ice house, after all, not a goddamn bar. Bobcat Teddy’s, which also is in the Heights, violates this rule, and I am here for it. I had a hankering for a Manhattan, and here it was made with Bulleit rye and Dolin vermouth and a Luxardo cherry and served up in a coupe, so don’t @ me. Also, the amiable but efficient bartender called me “babe” and “doll.”

For 75 years this was known as Jimmy’s Ice House, but it closed in 2017 to be taken over and updated by a local restaurateur. It has more the feel of a converted gas station than a traditional ice house, but points are awarded for maintaining an informal, neighborhood sensibility, with thrice-weekly crawfish boils (in season) and a central high-top where you can get water, bug spray, or dip into a jar of free dog biscuits. Also, points for having a live singer on a Saturday afternoon singing Leonard Cohen, as Leonard Cohen is basically the ice house vibe personified.