New Bar Takes Over Historic Shuttered Spot Downtown, Brings Unusual Visions: Owners Swear It Won’t Be Just Another Cocktail Lounge

A brand new drinks haven is coming to a historic hideaway in downtown Houston. The Cottonmouth Club is breathing new life into the 145-year-old Brewster Building at 108 Main. The space, which dates back to the 1870s, was most recently home to cocktail lounge Barringer Bar.

The Brewster will still see its fair share of brews and booze when The Cottonmouth Club opens on April 13. But things will be a little different this time around. The Cottonmouth Club is a not-quite-cocktail bar.

“We don’t want to be lumped in with the same idea as what people think of when they think cocktail bar,” Mike Raymond, the co-founder of The Cottonmouth Club and Reserve 101, tells PaperCity.

Let’s break this down. Cocktails? Check. Bar? Check. But these clutch cocktails will be served in a more casual vibe than this part of Houston is accustomed to. You can still expect expertly crafted drinks.

The industry veteran behind the bar will see to that. Michael Neff has more than two decades of experience in bars along the East Coast and West Coast — from Manhattan to Brooklyn, from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and beyond. His unique new menu is still “under wraps,” Raymond says.

Raymond, Neff, and designer Gregory Swanson are the trio of founders behind this new Cottonmouth Club.

Deep Within the Heart of the Houston Bar Scene

Raymond has a background in downtown Houston hospitality that stretches back almost 14 years. He’s spent 10 of them nurturing Reserve 101, which worships all things whisky. Like Neff, he didn’t want a single-spirit-focused bar this time around.

But the bars will share the same philosophy.

“Our main focus is on the experience,” Raymond says. “We want to create an environment that generates a positive emotional response from our guests.”

Everything boils down to the customers from his motivation to his favorite part of owning a bar.

“I still enjoy spending time with them, knowing about their days,” whether they are regulars or ones who stop in years later in a different place in their lives, Raymond notes.

“I was reminded a couple of nights ago at Reserve. There were people I hadn’t seen in a long time. It was nice to take 30, 40 minutes to catch up with them.”

Reserve is just 15 blocks from the Brewster location, but don’t expect to see any regulars bar hop between the two. It’s less than 20 minutes, but “that’s farther than a Houstonian will walk,” Raymond laughs. “It’s almost a different world.”

He and the other founders have been planning The Cottonmouth Club for three years now, and they’ve seen real estate get plucked up time and time again.

“I have an idea of what downtown is. How downtown reacts,” Raymond says. “There’s a certain grit to downtown that I really love.” As soon as Neff came down and saw the old Barringer Bar space, he agreed. It just felt right.

It definitely has an older vibe to it, with its narrow and long shotgun style. Just don’t call it a cocktail bar.