After more than a decade of game days, birthday parties and late nights, a popular Houston bar is preparing to pour its last drinks.
This holiday weekend marks the final one in business for The Dogwood at 2403 Bagby St. in Midtown. The owners announced the closure on social media with less than a week’s notice, inviting customers to one last Fourth of July celebration before the bar closes for good on Sunday.
“If you’ve ever spent a night with us, celebrated a birthday, watched a game, danced with friends, or if you’ve always said, ‘I need to check that place out someday,’—this is your chance,” The Dogwood’s closing announcement on Instagram read.
The owners didn’t specify a reason behind The Dogwood’s closure but said the bar was “going out the only way we know how … with a bang,” inviting customers to one final night of fireworks, drinks and music.
“Thank you, Houston, for 13.5 unforgettable years. Let’s make this last week one to remember.”
In a phone call with Chron, owner Jason Carrier attributed the bar’s closure, in part, to less nightlife traffic in Midtown and sales being “drastically lower.” This was something they knew was coming.
“The lease is coming up at the end of the year and we’ve just decided it was best to walk away now and let the next tenant have a crack at it and help with the rejuveniation and next cycle of Midtown Houston,” Carrier said.
“I think Dogwood as a brand is very dated. It came out at a time when having 45 TVs and 8,000 square feet of drinking space was coveted and I think this next generation of 20-somethings has a different idea of fun and it’s not necessarily taking shots and ordering rounds of beer and trying to meet people.”
Though the bar only gave a week’s notice of its closure, Carrier said he’d considered it earlier but decided to stay open this long through the local FIFA World Cup 2026 matches.
“It’s very sentimental to me. My best friends and I started it a long time ago in Austin and I grew up in Houston so when we opened The Dogwood in Houston, I was there all the time for years,” Carrier said.
‘I was able to get back to my roots and get close with my friends and family in Houston so it’s very bittersweet that we decided to close.”
Carrier, who runs several other concepts under Carrier5 Hospitality, opened The Dogwood’s first location in Austin in 2010. The Houston location was the brand’s second.
The Dogwood opened its doors in Midtown in 2013, Eater Houston previously reported, with patios and a rooftop views of the downtown skyline. At the time, the publication highlighted the two-story bar’s signature Southern Lemonade—made with Deep Eddy Sweet Tea Vodka and served in a Mason jar—a staple that’s still on the menu today.
Beyond its drinks and special happy hour and game day menus, The Dogwood also boasted itself for serving “high end food in a casual setting” like sweet tea-marinated wings, chicken and waffle sliders, Cajun chicken fritters and sweet potato tots.
At one point, The Dogwood had multiple locations, including others in Fort Worth and Nashville, Tenn. but those have all since been sold— leaving Houston’s Midtown location the very last for the bar brand.