Anvil Bar & Refuge

Bobby Heugel opened Anvil Bar & Refuge in March 2009 at 1424 Westheimer Rd in Montrose, and the bar is widely credited with kick-starting Houston's modern craft-cocktail movement. Its house menu, "Anvil's List of 100 Classics," began about a month after opening as a laminated training guide for bartenders — a minimal list of recipes every staffer was expected to know by heart — before guest demand pushed it onto the printed menu, where it remains a signature feature today.

The bar occupies a single-story storefront in a small strip center that was originally built in 1959 as a Bridgestone-Firestone tire shop; the space later cycled through the Daiquiri Factory and a bar called Sliders before Heugel took it over.

Anvil has been named a James Beard Award semifinalist for Outstanding Bar Program in multiple years, including as a finalist in 2018, cementing its reputation as a proving ground for Houston bar talent. Early bar manager Alba Huerta, a Speed Rack cocktail-competition winner, helped shape Anvil's seasonal program in its first years, according to a March 2012 Houston Press review that praised the bar's "ambitious cocktail program" for keeping regulars coming back.

On the non-alcoholic side, the current seasonal menu — which rotates alongside roughly nine alcoholic house creations — carries two named zero-proof drinks: "Double Time" (zero-proof tequila, strawberry, vinegar, sparkling water), created by bartender Drew Bennett, and the "Phony Negroni," a bubbly non-alcoholic Negroni served on tap. It's a small but genuine offering rather than a dedicated mocktail list, and the current beer and wine list does not include any 0.0%-ABV alcohol-free beer options.