Mynars Bar

The door hung open, inviting the cool breeze to drift in and cut through the smell of heavy smoke. I followed it inside and was immediately met by the condemnatory gaze of the old-timer crowd, all apparently a few beers and half a pack deep at 1 pm. But I was ready for this scenario.

Like encountering a bear in the wild or telling your significant other you blew the vacation fund on options trading, you have to act with confidence. Grab a seat at the bar like you've done it a hundred times and quickly rattle off an order. Maybe crack a joke. The pregnant silence will quickly subside.

It was the familiar script when l visited Mynars in West, a town of around 2,500 that's probably most well-known for the popular Czech Stop off I-35. But West doesn’t just have kolaches and gas. It also has Mynars Bar, a very fine and visit-worthy saloon that's been around in one form or another since 1923.

The establishment was originally opened by John and Rosie Mynar and survived as a grocery store through Prohibition. The couple's son Felix bought it in 1977, and then his kids Linda McWilliams and Rick Mynar took over in 2003. (Linda passed away in 2021.) That's a long time to keep anything in the family, let alone a bar.

Mynars is a beer and wine joint, but I can't imagine that would stop anyone here from getting tanked like a single dad on Valentine’s Day. From the neon signs to the James Hand mural, this is a Texas bar through and through. The dollar bills clinging to the ceiling look like they’ve been there since Neil Armstrong took one giant step. “I’ve been coming here since I was a kid and they’ve been like that. I saw one just drop from the ceiling one time,” a friendly guy in his 20s told me.

There's a pair of pool tables in the back, though I hear that dominoes are de rigeur around here. You can light up a smoke or 20, no one will mind. The cash register looks like something Bonnie and Clyde would've cracked open. Take the TV out and it'll look like 1977 in this place.

If that’s not the description of a classic bar, I don't know what is.