Coming Soon: The Texas State Fair

The Texas State Fair starts in just a few weeks.

Be sure and stop by The Amsterdam Bar for a cold beer after a long day at the fair!

The Amsterdam Bar!

Mondays - Bad Ass Jazz with Shelly Carrol

Tuesdays - $2.50 Import Drafts and Wells

Wednesdays - 7:00 A.M. Night Shift Happy Hour; Wednesday night is Euro Bike night

Thursdays - East Side Psy and Electronic Beat Science, A collective of sounds inside and best psy-trance in the city on the back patio

Sundays - Service Industry Night

Kind words from Quick DFW!

Last Saturday, LESLEY TÉLLEZ of Quick DFW was nice enough to stop by and check us out. She had some very kind words to say about The Amsterdam Bar and all the hard work we've done over the past couple of years.

The Amsterdam Bar isn't the coffee house you remember.

Since changing the name more than a year ago, the owners of the small Exposition Avenue space have built up an entirely new establishment. It's brighter. Warmer. Full of people – hip people, who look like they'd otherwise hang out at Lee Harvey's. Or anywhere in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The bar has a huge back patio, installed last June, where bands play when it's warm enough.

The inside is busy, too. Monday is Bad Ass Jazz Night, Thursday is trance, and on Sundays co-owner Sheldon Hubbard spins anything from Sinatra to punk. Wednesday is European Bike Night, where patrons can show off their Triumphs and Ducatis.

When we arrived around 9 p.m. on a recent Saturday, Irving-raised supermodel Erin Wasson was having her birthday party.

The place was packed with late twentysomethings in jeans, funky hats and cool accessories. Chatter and laughter echoed under the high ceilings, and the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" blared. (That's a rarity. Classic tunes like that aren't played on jukeboxes much around here.)

Several people wore X-rated balloon hats, fashioned by a middle-aged clown who was hanging out in a corner, wearing a rumpled top hat.

"You can get a dog [doing dirty things to] a cat," we overheard from an apparent balloon enthusiast. "I hired him for my birthday party."[1]

We've made lots of changes to the old bar and we're glad that folks appreciate what we've done.

"Dallas" movie in deep trouble

Dallas, Texas--November 15, 2006

According to Big Shot Celebrity, the new "Dallas" movie with John Travolta continues to be plagued by troubles. A number of celebreties, including local favorite Owen Wilson, have already bailed on the project.

I'm not sold on the whole "Dallas" theme anyway: been there, done that. Now how about a movie about a plucky little bar located in Exposition Park in Dallas, Texas. Now that sounds like a great movie!

Why yes, we DO have a soup cookoff on Dec. 10th

Dallas, Texas--November 15, 2006

Announcing the Second Soup Cookoff & Tournament at The Amsterdam Bar.

December 10th at The Amsterdam Bar!

Click the picture to embiggen and read the details!

The Week of Nov. 13th - Nov.19th

Click on the photo to embiggen!

Band Websites!

The White Drugs
The Good Sons
Silk Stocking
Stag Film

Beach House
Over the Atlantic
The Spores (Note: The Spores played during the fair and they are FANTASTIC! And there's a puppet show to boot!)

Randall, the Enamel Animal!

Last year our very own Mike Scheel made a trip, or maybe "pilgrimage" is a better word, out to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware to visit the Dogfish Head Brewery. Mike is very old friends with one of the brewers there and after a tour and tasting, Dogfish Head made us a gift of a very special device: "Randall, the Enamel Animal."

Thursday night is when Randall comes out to play

Dogfish Head Brewery is noted for its aggressive attitude towards hopping its beers. They offer several different iterations of their India Pale Ale ("IPA") and consistently win prizes for the high quality and intense flavor of their products. Dogfish Head has shown that they are not content to stop the hopping of beer at their factory: to push hoppiness to the next level Dogfish Head invented "Randall the Enamel Animal."

What is "Randall the Enamel Animal"? "Randall" is an "organoleptic hop transducer module." Huh? Look, it's a three-foot-tall plexi-glasss cylinder-filter unit packed with a half a pound of whole leaf hops. Randall is hooked up to the beer line leaving a keg. When a bartender pulls the tap on a keg equipped with Randall, the beer is forced through the hops, stripping out fresh hops flavor and producing the most intense hop experience known to man.

Randall, hooked up and ready to go!

The result, something Mike like to call "bastardized brew," is never predictable, but always delicious. That's because the combinations of hops and beer are nearly infinite. Each week, on Thursday night, our bar matches a different beer with a different kind of hops and lets Randall work his strange magic.

The lovely Marinda prepares a bastardized brew

If you are ever in Dallas, Texas visit us at 831 Exposition Avenue in Dallas, Texas. The Amsterdam Bar is located in Exposition Park, adjacent to the Texas State Fairgrounds.

Saturday October 14th Shows: SK1 & Matthewmatix

SK1 and Matthewmatix will play at The Amsterdam Bar this Saturday, October 14th. The show begins at 10:00 PM and the cover is only $5!

Come party on our patio at 831 Exposition Avenue, Dallas Texas 75226!

Friday October 13th Shows: The Bracelets, The Happy Bullets, and Pegasus Now!

The Bracelets, The Happy Bullets, and Pegasus Now! will play at The Amsterdam Bar tonight, Frida October 13th! The show begins at 10:00 PM and the cover is only $5!

Come party on our patio at 831 Exposition Avenue, Dallas Texas 75226!

We'll be serving up the coldest beer and coolest night life in Dallas, Texas.

Introducing the Cheshire Cat

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

Alice didn't think that proved it at all: however she went on. "And how do you know that you're mad?"

"To begin with," said the Cat, "a dog's not mad. You grant that?"

"I suppose so," said Alice.

"Well, then, " the Cat went on, "you see a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad."