This 1873 building once housed the Schneider Brothers store, and the airy design—half-open kitchen and steep staircase to the loft—is wonderfully modern while still preserving a wholesome Americana feeling. Upstairs there’s quite a respectable live music scene, where the food and drinks on offer certainly outclass those at other venues. It’s not among the new top tier of beverage programs or anything; there’s some carelessness in the measurements and muddling techniques, and the wine list dips more often than it used to into over-oaked, mass-market bottles. Still, you can find a good, balanced juice in there to complement the spicy, charred, and fatty flavors about to wallop your palate.

Hill Country barbecue loyalists won’t cotton to the treatment here, which has recently suffered from a toughness and overcompensation with fancy rubs that perhaps newcomers and visitors to Texas won’t notice as much. Anyone will love this burger—although overlooked for best-of lists, it’s easily a contender. Salads from local ingredients are delicious and balanced, while sides remain some of the strongest work: sautéed spinach with intense lemon; baked mac and cheese that evokes the dairy farms of Switzerland; cheesy grits with copious green-chile flavor. A daunting all-you-can-eat brunch is pretty good, considering it’s just a way to clean out the weekend’s unsold preps. It’s even better from the bricked-in courtyard on a sunny day.