It’s a night like many that came before it at the historic dive bar on Mount Bonnell Road — with an assortment of folks that might include retired teachers, former bank board members, high-end auto mechanics and lawyers sitting around, exchanging stories and sipping cold beer paid for with cash.
Reynolds, who for years has turned away interested developers, sold the bar and land that’s been in his family for 71 years to neighbors who made him an offer he said he could not pass up.
Halloween will be the historic bar’s last night, with Dry Creek regular, Sunday barman and musical fixture Kevin Dehan playing a final show with his band Cactus Lee; there also will be a live auction of some historic Dry Creek memorabilia.
With the closing of the Dry Creek Cafe, Austin says goodbye to one of a handful of remaining businesses that exemplified the ethos and aesthetic of one version of Old Austin.
Curvy Mount Bonnell Road, which runs high along the eastern edge of the Colorado River, is well known now for its scenic overlook at Covert Park and the multimillion-dollar mansions that dot the bluff’s ridge, but when Reynolds’ mother, Sarah Ransom, bought the bar from her brothers in 1956 and opened Dry Creek Cafe and Boat Dock, the bar on the serpentine road sat outside the city limits.
Reynolds said the bar’s clientele shifted a little over the years, moving from a strictly cedar chopper hangout to a place overrun with dancing college kids in the 1970s and to its current collection of diverse characters.
And if you wanted to be on the receiving end of a tongue whoopin’, just leave your empty beer bottle upstairs or park your stupid car in front of a neighbor’s driveway.
A teenage Johnson was navigating his yellow Datsun pickup through the winding hills above the river in 1991 when he stumbled upon the midcentury shack.
He assisted a hobbled Ransom in making her way down to the trailer where she lived for years, fixed what needed fixing around the bar, and helped out anyway he could.
Johnson describes Dry Creek as a place where a newcomer can walk in without knowing a soul, and, within 10 minutes, they’ll be sitting at a table chatting up strangers who would soon become new friends.
“And I think Sarah might have had a lot to do with that because Sarah, she would not care who you were.
She also helped keep the Dry Creek the Dry Creek, a time capsule of a place that Johnson realizes will now exist only in many people’s memories.
“There’s a lot of people who won’t remember Dry Creek, and the only Austin they’ll know is the Austin we have now,” Johnson said.
With their favorite local haunt fading into the annals of Austin lore, Johnson said he’s not sure how the community of regulars will stay in touch or where they will meet.