Downtown Houston lands another bar

For some downtown residents, the latest entrant on the scene will be music to their ears.

The Nightingale Room, a bar with a bent on music, opened Nov. 12 at 308 Main St.

Mike Criss, general manager of OKRA Charity Saloon and former bartender at Anvil Bar & Refuge, is the mastermind behind The Nightingale Room.

Named after the — you guessed it — bird, Nightingale Room was also inspired by Houston music legend Sippie Wallace, who was known as the Texas Nightingale during the 1920s.

Criss partnered with The Clumsy Butcher LLC, the same group behind Houston bars and restaurants such as Anvil, Underbelly and The Hay Merchant, to create Nightingale.

Nightingale dubs itself as a casual bar where patrons can listen to vinyl during the week and the occasional live music or DJ act on weekends. The bar has enlisted the folks at Cactus Music, a longtime Houston independent music store, to train staff and consult on the bar's record collection.

Criss will be tending bar along with omnipresent Houston bartender Bobby Heugel.

"I love working in bars that have great energy," Criss said in a statement. "This bar is about having fun, and we don't take ourselves too seriously. We want the guests to interact with us and with each other. It's all about the experience."

The bar will be housed in a shotgun-style historic space that features a second floor stage at the back of the bar to showcase a mix of local and traveling musicians and DJs. The second floor is where bar-goers can lounge and listen to vinyl. Instead of traversing stairs to get their drinks, customers simply use a phone to order drinks, and bartenders will send drinks up via a "drink elevator."

Giselle Greenwood oversees the day-to-day operations of the Houston Business Journal newsroom and website. Follow her on Twitter for more.