Longtime Austin Honky-Tonk Giddy Ups Is Closing

A longtime Austin honky-tonk, bar, and live music venue is going to be closing this summer. Giddy Ups will have its last day at 12010 Menchaca Road in the far south Austin area sometime in late August.

Giddy’s impending shutter is happening because of “a change in lease ownership,” according to the Facebook announcement post published on June 23. Owner Michael Morgan — who took over the business after his mother and Giddy’s previous owner Nancy M. Morgan passed away in October 2023 from cancer — told the Chronicle that he wanted to renew the bar’s lease, but wasn’t given the chance to.

The community-oriented bar had been operating on a month-to-month lease since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. What happened now, per the alt-weekly, was that the landlord is giving the lease to a different business, which confused Michael Morgan, because Giddy’s wasn’t a struggling business. “[T]hat’s why it’s so strange to me why he would want to go with someone else,” he told the publication.

“We’re not happy about leaving,” the team shares on Facebook. “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.”

Michael Morgan and the Giddy’s team wants to try to reopen the honky-tonk in a new location, according to the Facebook post. They’re open to suggestions for potential spaces. Eater Austin has reached out for more information.

Giddy’s plans on having a party in late August for its final day of service. And until then, it’ll still host its scheduled programming of concerts, karaoke, open mics, shuffleboard, etc.

Giddy Ups’ life started as Dotson’s, a beer bar with setups (where people could bring in their own liquors and bartenders would serve ice and mixers) in 1934 by owners the Dotson family. It was renamed Giddy Ups in 1993 and Nancy Morgan joined the staff in 1996. Under her management, they added live music programming in 1997 — leading to the superlative of being the “biggest little stage in South Austin;” she took over as owner in 1998; and then the bar secured its liquor license in 2014.

Giddy’s story is similar to another longtime Austin dive bar — Horseshoe Lounge. That bar — which opened on South Lamar in 1965 — closed down in February 2015 with the goal of reopening in a new address. It was supposed to open on East Riverside, but it never panned out.