Here inside the Auditorium Grocery
The windows shine and nothing’s concealed
This place is the only bar for me

The stools are new, but you can see
That B.A. Rifsner built the steel
Here inside the Auditorium Grocery

A saw in the rafters will set pine free
That old time feeling is for real
This place is the only bar for me

Your Friday night might only be
A touch of bourbon and an orange peel
Here inside the Auditorium Grocery,

But that might just be all we need
As an older Houston is revealed
In the only bar for you and me

Through the windows a century breatheS
Sit and feel how history feels
Here inside the Auditorium Grocery,
This place is the only bar for me.

-shafer hall 10/2/12

Dear squab, thanks
for letting us into your home,
and though you now flit
from power line to telephone pole
out in the great humidity,
your gray shadow still sneaks
past the corner of my eye
late this Friday night
in our former grocery.

As the oven sputters,
young hearts flutter,
and our regulars coo
to one another,
there is still much of you
between these walls.

Thanks again, squab;
I’ll help add a twig or two
to your next nest
in Houston or in the sky.

-Shafer Hall

The Weekend has Landed, it’s finally here
With guests lining up for a reason to cheer
A drink with which to propose a toast
Food to nibble, pumpkin seeds, roast

From offices high and far and wide,
The people descend with one purpose in mind,
The fabulous, rich, the poor and the plain
Shoving and pushing and ‘Beer me again!’

With tastes diverse and palettes to please
It’s my job to serve them and charge them their fees
Our Selection diverse and our beer list is long,
‘Ere, scuse me matey, get rid of that bong’

Sorry to break from this tale I must tell
But drugs in a bar is my vision of hell
Clean spirits is what we want you to take
So that hangover free you will hopefully wake

Or beer, that most noble and ancient of ales
The hops, the malt, the incredible smells
Of little yellow flowers in an English field
Bobbing around to the wind that they yield

There’s a ruckus in the corner it seems to me
And someone may have said something funny
That wasn’t taken as well as it might
And suddenly now we’ve got our first fight.

Good Adam descends and pulls them apart
‘Fore damage is done to a bodily part
Hands are shaken and pats on the back
‘Sorry old boy, I’ll cut you some slack’

These are the problems we often will face
When drink makes feelings get out of place
But a kind word can soothe and smooth and disarm
For none come here with intent to do harm

I’ll break way now and leave you to drink
Afore all the customers cause a stink
Waiting and thirsting for spirits or beer
Longing and needing some Friday night cheer

The weekend has landed, it’s finally here,
And it’s time to make my guests feel so very queer
The spirits are flowing and the beer shoots out
Lager and bitter, Pilsner and stout.

-Andy Charlton