The Texas–Texas A&M soccer sport is again this week, after a thirteen-year hiatus. Texas Month-to-month, which has lengthy coated the rivalry, rejoices in its return with a full assortment of tales concerning the sport’s historical past, off-the-field antics, main gamers, and extra. Learn every part right here.
“The password will be on the receipt. Take a right into the alley and look for the door with the mask.” I’d simply completed a nightcap at a cigar-and-cocktail bar in charming downtown Bryan, twin metropolis to Texas A&M College’s School Station, when the server requested if my husband and I had tried out the speakeasy across the nook. My long-ago recollections of nights across the A&M campus are affected by photographs on the Dry Bean, in Northgate, and dinner on the Dixie Rooster. No, I had not tried out the speakeasy.
Mashing a four-digit code into the keypad of an alley door was not how I used to be anticipating issues to go that weekend, which was meant to be a fast household journey to see a pal’s manufacturing of Cinderella on the Theatre Firm of Bryan–School Station. Phrase of Mouth, the speakeasy—one in all two in as many blocks—was a shock, as had been its light-up menus and Thursday-night burlesque present. (And that’s not even the one burlesque present on the town.) School Station’s inhabitants has practically doubled since 2000, and continued progress is predicted for all the Bryan–School Station area as graduates stick round and new enterprise and cultural developments appeal to transplants. Certainly, these previously cozy twin cities turned booming metro have a lot to supply new residents and weekend vacationers.
And as hordes descend upon the world this fall for the long-awaited revival of the Aggie-Longhorn rivalry, they may discover it’s value making an extended weekend of it. Right here’s a useful information for the place to eat, play, store, and keep in Bryan–School Station.
See + Do
Pop outdoors for a cool midmorning stroll via charming downtown Bryan and immediately, you’ve turn into a type of Texans who makes use of “antique” as a verb. Chicken’s Nest Items & Antiques, with its treasure trove of classic pearl snaps and basic candies, is an efficient place to start out. Then seize a recent brew—and admire the historic constructing’s structure and artwork—at Tavo Espresso Co. earlier than heading over to browse the bounty of used and uncommon books at Ed’s Bookshop. The store focuses on Texana and the West, however I discovered its twentieth-century literature choices of observe and grabbed a Trendy Library imprint of Les Misérables. Inform Ed the place you’re taking your treasured buy, and he’ll add the placement to his map of “where books go,” chronicling the extent of “what a little 450 square foot store can do.”
Burn off a few of that additional shot of espresso with a hike via School Station’s Lick Creek Park. The paths are largely flat (that is the Brazos Valley, in any case) and on the shorter facet, however you’ll be able to hyperlink them collectively (or not!) for a stunning stroll exploring native crops, such because the spiral staircase–esque Navasota girls’ tresses. Don’t miss Butterfly Alley—which is strictly what it appears like—and take a look at the park’s nature middle.
Century Sq. is the brand new(ish, suppose 2016) hub for the eat-drink-play crowd in School Station. Should you’re on the hunt for a Kendra Scott bauble or the most recent Lululemon it-shade leggings, the open-air mall is a superb spot to roam, and it provides loads of choices for a fast meal. (Texas Month-to-month’s Eating Information praises Porters’ pork chop and filet, however I’d advocate going for weekend brunch, the place you’ll be able to seize jalapeño rooster and waffles or bananas Foster pancakes.)
Downtown Bryan. Ashton Heinrich/Alamy Hush and Whisper Distilling Firm. Courtesy of Hush and Whisper Distilling Firm. Dine + Drink
Texas is now the second-most-visited wine area in the USA, with practically 5 hundred wineries. That wasn’t the case again in 1977, when Messina Hof in Bryan grew to become the state’s fourth vineyard. Within the practically fifty years since, founders Paul and Merrill Bonarrigo have gone from experimenting with one acre of grapes to producing greater than 60,000 instances of wine a season. The unique Bryan tasting room and wine bar (different areas are in Fredericksburg, Grapevine, and Richmond) provides quite a lot of choices to pattern the vineyard’s intensive listing.
Hush & Whisper Distilling Firm goes heavy on the speakeasy vibe at its elegantly appointed, spacious lounge within the Varisco Constructing, in downtown Bryan. You possibly can sip a gin rickey and take within the scene from the wealthy leather-based couches, admiring the brass fixtures and deep-hued accents surrounding the large, but by some means decor-appropriate, industrial nonetheless. Hush & Whisper distills gin, vodka, and white whiskey (its first batches of whiskey are at present getting old in barrels) and crafts its personal mixers, together with a tasty house-made tonic.
Downtown Bryan can also be residence to among the space’s finest dinner spots. Elia Cafe Tapas Bar tops the listing. Housed within the Outdated Bryan Market, Elia stuns as a lot for its ethereal and welcoming design as for its menu and spectacular wine listing. From its conventional Spanish dishes corresponding to albondigas, paella, and patatas bravas to its easy omelets and salads, Elia maintains a excessive degree of execution. (It additionally by some means made my choosy eight-year-old a fan of duck eggs.)
Down the road, go to one other prime choose, Ronin, recognized for its farm-to-table menu and family-style eating tables. I now understand it because the place to get a grilled pompano as large as your head. (It was scrumptious.) Positioned within the renovated Ice Home on Predominant, the restaurant glows amid its dim lighting, wooden flooring, and uncovered brick—a comfortable gathering spot.
The counter at Tavo Espresso Co. The LaSalle Resort. Alex Beckman/Courtesy of LaSalle Resort Keep
The Texas nation basic “This Old Porch” is an ode to the distinctive friendship born from the real-time nostalgia of small-town faculty days. Within the track, A&M alums Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Eager Jr. stay out that friendship partially on Predominant Road in downtown Bryan, over the LaSalle Resort’s “greasy plate of enchiladas / With lots of cheese and onions” washed down with chilly iced tea. The LaSalle, in-built 1928 close to the previous prepare depot, nonetheless stands, although its latest iteration is a far cry from the diner depicted within the track. (Its foyer restaurant, Station 36, does serve a candy tea–glazed rooster breast; no greasy enchiladas to be discovered.) Renovations of the fifty-room boutique lodge, together with its basement speakeasy, the Boiler Room, had been accomplished in September. Its location on Predominant Road, throughout from the historic open-air Palace Theater—additionally name-checked in Lovett’s track—makes the LaSalle a handy jumping-off level for strolling to a handful of downtown Bryan outlets and eating places.
If the intersection of accessibility and funk is extra your factor, take a ten-minute drive from the A&M campus to Resort McCoy, simply off Texas Freeway 6. The lodge group (with areas in Pullman, Washington, and Tuscon, Arizona) has reworked an old-school motor lodge into the vibiest keep within the space. Shade explodes from all corners of the courtyard, and enclosed inside are a saltwater pool, a large chessboard, a mushroom sculpture backyard, a pickleball courtroom, an adult-size teeter-totter, and different sporadic delights. The lodge hosts a month-to-month artwork stroll and stay music every Friday and Saturday, and visitors can seize a Texas-made brew or glass of wine from the all-day foyer bar.
The Bryan–School Station metro provides loads of different chain lodge choices, in addition to higher-end spots such because the Stella and the George. A handy possibility for an prolonged keep is without doubt one of the many downtown Bryan loft leases simply above Predominant Road’s points of interest—together with the Phrase of Mouth speakeasy and its burlesque present.
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