Houston’s Most Iconic Restaurant Quietly Unveils a New Bar With Perks Galore — Diving Into Brennan’s New Menu and Drinks

The first thing to shout out about Brennan’s Houston’s newly reimagined and expanded bar is the mouthwatering New Orleans style barbecued shrimp on the menu, along with other Louisiana influenced appetizers. For the record, as a Louisiana native, I had tears in my eyes when I got my fingers obligingly messy for those shrimp. Second, goodbye famed Terms of Endearment room.

Hello Courtyard Bar with seating for some 75.

Alex Brennan-Martin has quietly been opening his dramatically expanded bar for several days — not coincidentally since Mardi Gras — and while finishing touches remain in the works, this is an expansion sure to be welcomed by all who prefer a somewhat casual atmosphere for savoring the finest Creole cuisine this side of the Red River. No, this side of Commander’s Palace and Pascal’s Manale on Napoleon Street. (All in the Brennan-Martin and Brennan families.)

On PaperCity‘s Friday midday visit, customers were already trickling in for a feast of what Brennan-Martin likes to call “our dive bar meets Southern classic” menu. He was thinking of the restaurant’s new pickled deviled eggs reminiscent of the classic pickled eggs in a jar he found on the counter in numerous Southern bars.

During this first look, general manager Carl Walker, in his chef’s attire, loaded up a delectable sampling from the new menu including those delish deviled eggs, a divine trio of oyster presentations, gumbo ya-ya with potato salad, shareable Louisiana-influenced flat breads and ceviche tacos. Also on the expanded menu are mufulletta sliders, seafood towers and more shareable dishes including steak.

The previous bar is now a seating area while the new Brennan’s bar space is commanded by a zinc bar surrounded by high chairs. Each table is topped with zinc.

“I fell in love with zinc bars when I was living and working (two years) in France,” Brennan-Martin tells PaperCity. “I’ve always wanted a zinc bar . . . We’re in the ugly duckling stage right now. It’s not stained enough. It will add over time.

“It will continue to pick up stains and this and that. It’s supposed to be old and molded. It’s not new and it’s not old yet.”

So far Brennan-Martin has been quiet about this Brennan’s bar expansion because he didn’t actually have seating for any throng that might wander in. But now he’s ready. Even if he’s still waiting on a few more of those zinc-topped tables.

The design continues the original brick theme that dates back to the 1920s when the Houston Junior League built the two-story structure. Decor includes historic photos of the Brennan family, its restaurant history, and one of Jack Nicholson and Shirley MacLaine at a table in the room that came to be known as the Terms of Endearment room as that was where a scene from the classic movie was filmed.

Since the Brennan-Martin family took over the historic Houston building in 1967, there have been several expansions.

Brennan-Martin quips that expansions of the restaurant have moved at a tectonic pace. That would be one to two inches a year. When Brennan’s Houston first opened, the bar was located beneath the stairs just as it is the family’s Commander’s Palace in New Orleans. Over the decades, through a fire and the COVID pandemic, the bar has finally come to rest in its new auspicious space.

As Brennan-Martin again quips, in another 200 or 300 years, the bar will be stretching over to Westmoreland Street, the historic neighborhood just to the west of Brennan’s Houston.

About that Mardi Gras connection. Brennan-Martin points out that the Houston restaurant opened on Mardi Gras — March 5 in 1967. Following the devastating fire, the restaurant reopened on Mardi Gras day in 2010, and now the expanded bar had its official opening on this year’s Mardi Gras — March 4.

It’s all good timing. Brennen-Martin believes that his predecessors on high, including his famed mother Ella Brennan, are watching over the Houston restaurant institution.