From Blog to Bar
Bobby Heugel opened Anvil in
Houston after online success.
Houston Hot Spot Anvil Originated with the Written Word
By Jenny Adams
As patrons sidle up to the bar at An- vil, Houston’s first classic cocktail bar, the story of their evening
begins with the simple phrase, “Welcome
to Anvil.” But the story behind Anvil dates
back three years and originates with a
few well-thought-out words in an endless
online world that ultimately evolved into
the creation of a bar.
“I got online one day, bored,” Anvil’s
co-owner Bobby Heugel admits of his
bar’s atypical online roots in 2006. “I
didn’t have any Web training, so I just
used a pre-made template on Blogger.
com.” From there, Heugel created Drink
Dogma ( www.drinkdogma.com) as a way
to learn more about the craft of cocktails.
“Getting online and talking to others
who were doing similar things in terms
of cocktails was a way to communicate
for me. I was [bartending while] getting
my Master’s at Illinois State University,
which is in Normal, Ill., and I didn’t work
in one of these huge cities like New York
or San Francisco. The Internet was a great
source at that time, and it still is today.”
That year, Heugel moved back to his
native Houston and started working with
childhood friend Kevin Floyd at Monica
Pope’s restaurant, Beaver’s. During this
time, Heugel also met chef Dax McAnear,
who helped him expand his concoctions
— and his blogging.
“Dax is a great chef and he taught me
how to layer flavors. He also showed me
classic cooking techniques like making
gastriques and infusions, and I began to
apply them to the flavor combinations
3 8 Nightclub & Bar Magazine | OC TOBER 2009
I used to create my cocktails,” Heugel
recounts. “Between that and my ongoing
research in classic cocktail techniques, I
basically developed my own grad course
in classic cocktail preparation. The blog
developed a local following in Houston,
which helped it grow,” Heugel says.
“Then I went to Tales [of the Cocktail] and
met the whole cocktail blogging community.” (See sidebar.)
Heugel and Floyd, who contributed
to Drink Dogma, had tossed around the
idea of creating a bar while working at
Beaver’s. Although Heugel had no prior
business experience, after bartending
his way through undergrad and graduate
school for international communications,
he realized “that what I was doing to pay
for school should really be my career.”
And in 2007, with friends Justin Burrow,
Morgan Weber and Steve Flippo, they
began taking steps toward opening a bar.
The blog, originally devoted to Heugel’s
thoughts on cocktail creations, industry
events and the overall cocktail revolution,
now enabled the men to harness advertising power for the future bar project.
“The blog allowed us to have almost
constant contact with people in the city,”
Heugel explains. “We regularly communicated that we were doing this project
via updates about the progress of the bar
being built. It got a lot of attention right off
the bat, and in all honesty, I didn’t know
Drink Dogma was going to have the level
of impact that it did.”
They began to garner feedback, soliciting advice from experts far and wide and
even getting financial
assistance: After reading the
blog, a few people went to Beaver’s
for a drink to meet Heugel. The meeting
morphed into friendships, and ended up
with the curious folks investing in Anvil.
The blog helped create a buzz around
Anvil long before it even opened its doors
in March 2009. For the soft opening,
Heugel and his team left paper over
the windows and only invited about 20
people. More than 100 showed up.
Behind the Blog-Born Bar
The name Anvil stems from a visceral
feeling among Heugel and his cohorts
that a cocktail bar should always focus on
creating the cocktails — building a drink
from the bottom of the glass upward.
“Anvil sounded like a great way to talk
about how the drinks are made — from
scratch,” Heugel says.
Mirroring the back bar, tools and techniques you’d expect to find in cities like
New York or San Francisco, Anvil boasts
the works, from house-made bitters to
fresh-squeezed juices to a Kold-Draft ice
machine. But its décor has a vibe all its
own. The 2,100-square-foot space features 25 seats at the bar as well as tables
and couches to seat 40.
“We want to create something with
attention to the past. My favorite part is
that this venue is something we created
together. We ripped out the drywall the
day we signed the lease, and with the
exception of sawing the bar top and some
plumbing and electrical, we built the
