Midnight Cowboy
Four of the cocktails are built at your table off a rolling cart, and the staff pick which ones.24
Why go
Bill Norris opened this in March 2012, while he was beverage director of the Alamo Drafthouse. The room had traded for years as the Midnight Cowboy Modeling massage parlor. The bar kept the name.1 Alamo founder Tim League bought the property, and a distressed original ceiling turned up when the drop ceiling came out.2 Joel Mozersky's redesign gave it a vintage bar, black leather booths and three private rooms. The first list ran in three parts: house cocktails, obscure classics, and a section called friends of Midnight Cowboy
holding drinks borrowed from bartenders in other cities.1 The theme changes. Manager Tacy Rowland rolled out one called The Art of Conversation
in December 2017. The menu has run on tarot since the summer of 2025.25
Order this / avoid
- Order: whatever comes off the cart. Moira Muldoon had seven drinks across two visits and the staff built two of them at her table, one finished with rosemary smoldering over the glass.2
- Then: the current themed list, where the house creations sit alongside twists on classics.4
- Avoid: assuming a late booking will hold. A Saturday tried on two days' notice came back booked solid for the night.2
What locals & experts say
- Claudia Alarcón reviewed it for the Austin Chronicle weeks after it opened. She listed the Kalamazoo Julep with fresh celery and the Pisco Sourgrass with house-made sorrel-honey syrup. Then landed here:
This is truly an oasis for cocktail connoisseurs seeking a quiet environment to enjoy extraordinary libations.
1 - Moira Muldoon went twice for Austin Monthly in 2018 carrying a friend's skepticism about whether the place is worth the ceremony, and answered it:
The drinks were mostly fantastic, and I didn't find it pretentious.
2 - Nicolai McCrary rates nothing here, because The Infatuation scores only places where you can eat a full meal. He describes a long front room of tufted leather booths, dark marble tables and old wood flooring with bigger rooms behind it. The bar sits on his current Best Cocktail Bars guide.47
Good to know
- Getting in. Book ahead. Then find the unmarked door at 313 E 6th and press the buzzer labeled Harry Craddock. A red light overhead means open. A lit vacancy sign means tables are free.24
- How small it is. The Chronicle put capacity at 48 in 2012, and Austin Monthly counted 44 inside across the booths and three small rooms in 2018, with about 20 more on the patio.12
- Price, with its dates attached. Every cocktail was $12 in 2012. The flamed-absinthe Déjà Vu was $14 in 2018. Nobody publishes a current price.12
- Hygiene: clean and improving. Austin Public Health scored this address 95 on 3 December 2025, 90 on 3 April 2025, 88 on 14 March 2024 and 84 on 20 July 2023. Nothing near the city's failing line of 70.6
Verdict
should-visit — Book it, and take a weeknight. The ceremony is the product here: two hours at the table, no phones, no seats at the bar. There is a back patio for anyone who cannot put the phone away.