In 1933, Kenneth Threadgill, a bootlegger and country music fan, opened a Gulf filling station just north of the Austin city limits. He had obtained the first beer license in the county, and the filling station soon became a gathering place for traveling musicians.
Wednesday night sessions
In the 1960s, the tavern welcomed folk singers, hippies and beatniks to Wednesday night singing sessions. According to the restaurant, Janis Joplin developed her brassy style there.
A rescue and a restaurant
When the original site faced demolition, city councilman Lowell Lebermann Jr. helped save it, and Eddie Wilson, owner of the Armadillo World Headquarters, bought it. The Armadillo closed on New Year’s Eve 1980, and Threadgill’s reopened as a Southern-style restaurant on New Year’s Eve 1981. A second location, Threadgill’s World Headquarters, opened in 1996 in south Austin.
A chapter closes
In March 2020, during COVID-19 restrictions, Eddie and Sandra Wilson closed the restaurant permanently. The story of Threadgill’s remains a big part of Austin’s musical history.
We include Threadgill’s here as local history. It shows how a single small business can shape a city’s culture for generations.
Featured photo: Threadgill’s Home Cooking by Michael Peirce, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
