Sahara Lounge, the eclectic East Austin music club, made national news this week, when it joined 26 other bars around the nation on the 2024 USA TODAY Bars of the Year list . The list was created by USA TODAY Network food writers across the country and includes everything from humble dives to high-end cocktail bars.
“I think what makes it special in some ways is the ghosts that live in the building. But also just any space that has been a music venue for such a long time starts to have a special mojo in the walls,” said Topaz McGarrigle, who owns the bar with his mother, Eileen Bristol. “I also think that the fact that there's literally no right angles or straight surfaces makes it sound better.”
What makes Sahara Lounge stand out
Walk into a crowded Sahara Lounge in far East Austin on a Friday night with Prince sliding through the speakers and feel the heat rising off a dancing crowd, while even those in line for cold beers sway.
Come back Saturday and groove to the sounds of Africa Night and then move to the back courtyard with your cooling Sahara Slant cocktail to converse with friends old and new of all ages and colors.
In an Austin that at times feels like it’s slowly falling prey to homogeneity, a night at the Sahara excites like a mirage and then settles in and soothes like a dream.
Maybe because that’s how it started. Eileen Bristol’s bandmate in Michigan jazz band Zoumountchi, Ibrahim Aminou, called her after the couple had played a show in Ann Arbor with Bristol’s visiting musician son, Topaz McGarrigle.
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He had a dream. They were going to open a jazz lounge in Austin, where Topaz lived.
The trio opened Sahara Lounge on Webberville Road a year later.
The group purchased the bar from Thomas Perkins, who was looking to step away from the bar business after 33 years operating his TC’s Lounge.
Sahara is the definition of ramshackle, its composition the amalgamation of three different buildings. The roof of the main building constructed in 1962 is at a visible angle, hence the name of the bar’s house cocktail.
The Sahara Slant is made with akpateshi, an herbaceous liquor Niger-native Aminou makes with ingredients he brings back from trips to Africa, spiced rum and ginger beer. Bright and cutting it is the perfect antidote to Austin’s steamy nights and the heat created in the old building.
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Music is naturally an integral part of a bar started by professional musicians. Bristol and Aminou play in the band Zoumountchi, which performs weekly as part of Africa Nights. McGarrigle, the frontman of psychedelic intergalactic funksters Golden Dawn Arkestra, spins records monthly for Ladies Night. The calendar also regularly includes one of Austin’s best dance parties, Body Rock ATX, produced by Jonathan “Chaka” Mahone and Ghislaine “Qi Dada” Jean of hip hop group Riders Against the Storm and DJ Chorizo Funk.
If you’re looking for a beer without the the bass threatening to move the balls on the billiards table inside, hit the lounge before the show starts and soak in the space’s musical history, documented with old concert posters, or head to a table out back where the conversation flows like the lounge’s Quan Yin fountain, which honors the Bodhisattva of Compassion.
“The community of people that come are so warm and the diversity racially and age-wise is super unique,” McGarrigle said. “I like to describe the vibe as if you could literally be in Austin, New Orleans or somewhere in the middle of Africa. You could be anywhere - it’s timeless.”
Sahara Lounge: 1413 Webberville Road, Austin, Texas; 512-927-0700, www.saharalounge.com
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: 'You could be anywhere. It’s timeless.' Austin club a USA TODAY bar of the year
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