Estate sale is bittersweet for patrons of closing pub
Heights residents Gary and Maureen Hall began grabbing beers at the Black Labrador soon after the pub opened its doors about three decades ago. The place was a big draw for Gary, he recalled, because it was one of the few Houston spots at the time selling Guinness on draft.
So when the recently closed pub announced it would hold a two-day estate sale to clean house, the Halls blocked off part of Friday morning to become some of the first in line. They left with artwork and a few chess pieces ($5 each) that once stood on the life-size board next to the patio out front.
The sale gave the Halls and other longtime patrons a chance to savor the Black Labrador one last time — and offered a bittersweet reminder of the ambiance that made it a Montrose main
stay for 33 years.
“You come in here for the atmosphere, the people,” Gary Hall said. “You come in here and you feel like family. And that to me was more important than anything.”
Even in estate sale mode, the pub maintained the antique and rustic charm that attracted so many of its customers. Cracked paint still coated the ceiling and walls, and there were the same wooden chairs and tables — only this time with price tags. Stacks of plates and rows of pub glasses, on sale for $2 each, covered the table surfaces.
The estate sale came almost a month after the pub’s Dec. 15 closure. The property, on Montrose Boulevard next to the Freed-Montrose Library — which is relocating — is owned by the nearby University of St. Thomas. The university has yet to announce plans for the property.
At the sale, customers chose from a wide range of products: dining menus ($5), napkin holders ($10), a wooden clock without hands ($10), spill mats ($5), a red telephone booth out front ($1,750) and an assortment of tables, chairs and umbrellas. Signs in all-caps throughout the pub instructed patrons, “NOTHING BEHIND BAR IS FOR SALE” and “Chairs $15.00 each BUY THEM ALL!”
Estate sale guests Lynn and Marcel Mason said they began visiting the Black Labrador about 25 years ago and have remained steady if infrequent guests ever since. Marcel said he would miss the array of British and Irish beers, and Lynn said she would miss the pub’s central location, where she could meet her girlfriends who lived throughout the city.
Both said they would miss the food.
“Our favorite dish here: We always come for the mussels,” Lynn Mason said. “They have the best mussels of anywhere we’ve traveled in the world.”
In its first review of the Black Labrador, published Jan. 1, 1987, the Chronicle opined that while the pub operates as a full-service restaurant, that “doesn’t mean the place has forsaken its pub heritage.”
“This place aspires to becoming a neighborhood hangout,” the review reads. “The menu, though not ‘authentic’ for a pub, just offers something extra.”
Another article, published two years later, revealed the pub had quickly accomplished its goal, calling it a gathering place for “the Montrose museum crowd, students, theater and concertgoers, priests from the St. Thomas staff, young families from the neighborhood and travelers who are nostalgic for their favorite English pub.”
For Gary Hall, the feel of the pub, not the quality of the grub, was paramount.
“If the food is at least edible, if they treat me like family, I can come in and I feel comfortable, and all my worries outside are gone,” he said. “I just get a Guinness and shepherd’s pie and I’m a happy guy.”