A new Cedar Park bar, The Bar(n) on Baltimore, is officially opening for business this weekend.
The grand opening will take place on Saturday, Jan. 3, from 5 p.m. to 12 a.m.
As we reported in November, the new bar is coming to the former Third World Lounge space at 4901 Catharine St. The Bar(n) on Baltimore (Facebook page) is a partnership among three restaurateurs, Ross Scofield, Danielle Coulter and Tim Blair who are also running Rx The Farmacy, the brunch and dinner spot at 45th and Spruce, and the building owner Noel Karasanyi.
Read more about The Bar(n) owners and their concept for the spot here.
January 2nd, 2015 at 6:23 pm
I have vivid memories of the New Third World Lounge, which long was a feature of University City life.
One was in the 1980s, when a friend of mine, a Calvary radical, was m murdered by a guy she had picked up at the New Third World. (She had a taste for rough trade.)
One was in the 1990s, when times were hard & I was trying to scrape out a living selling ads for the University City Review. I made an app’t with the owner, Noel Karasanyi, for 5pm. Karasanyi owned 2 other bars in UC. He was a Tutsi from Burundi. I walked in at happy hour – & the bar was dead empty. Apparently, rough trade is a late-night crowd. Karasanyi was watching the TV news over the bar. And the TV was showing a genocide against his fellow waTutsi back home. (This was just a little genocide, not the big genocide next door in Rwanda a few years later.) He seemed morose on that occasion.
Nevertheless, he bought an ad from me, god bless his heart. May the Bar(n) buy many, many ads in 2015 & the years to come!
January 2nd, 2015 at 8:00 pm
Welp, that tidbit gives new significance to the New Third World Lounge’s longstanding practice of keeping its front door locked while being “open” for business.
January 5th, 2015 at 5:01 pm
(crossposted)
I went to the opening on saturday.
field notes:
good mix of reasonably priced beer (everything was $4-$6).
friendly bar service. not at all pretentious.
crowd leaned white and mostly gentrification-esque. lots of hipsters, with lots of representation from the two prominent hipster communities in the area (known as the “assymetrical haircut militia” mafia, and the “big glasses, working hard to appear poor” crowd). I’m not complaining about the crowd.
no fights/shootings/police involvement, from what I can tell.
overall: quite satisfied with something sort of bare bones and not over the top, given the prices. so far, I’m going to call it a big win for that corner, which has needed help for ages.
Another comment – the plain layout is better as a straight up bar and social space, compared to Dock St.
January 31st, 2015 at 10:22 am
I have fond memories of going to the Third World Lounge on a couple of Saturday nights in the late 90s for Caribbean dance nights. The joint was jumpin’.