CHAPTER TWELVE
Yard Games
Cornhole, Washers, Horseshoes, and the Patio as a PR Asset
Step outside. If the floor games are the workhorses of the indoor honky tonk, the yard games are how you turn the patio, the side lot, the patch of caliche out back, or the gravel under the live oaks into a second venue — one that runs in the daylight, costs almost nothing to build, and welcomes absolutely everybody. Cornhole, washers, horseshoes, and their cousins are the most accessible, most affordable, and arguably the most Texan activities in this entire book, and for a great many venues they are the easiest PR engine of all to start, because the barrier to entry is a sheet of plywood and an afternoon.
Here’s what makes the yard games special as PR, beyond everything we said about activities in general. They activate outdoor space, which most Texas honky tonks have and underuse. They are radically cheap — you can build the equipment yourself for the price of lumber. They are gloriously easy, which means they welcome the newcomer, the family, the person who’d never pick up a pool cue, in a way the more intimidating indoor games sometimes don’t. And they are made for tournaments and daytime play, opening up parts of your week and your property that would otherwise sit empty. The yard games are the great democratizers of the activities world.
This chapter walks the Texas yard-game trio — cornhole, washers, and horseshoes — plus the patio that hosts them, the leagues and tournaments that organize them, and the real cautions (alcohol, projectiles, and neighbors) that come with moving the party outdoors. The league mechanics from the floor-games chapter carry straight over; what’s new here is the outdoor dimension, and the way these particular games pull in exactly the broad, all-ages, anyone-can-play crowd that keeps a honky tonk healthy.
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PR TACTIC: The Patio Signal What it is: Use outdoor games to show the room is relaxed, social, and easy to enter. Why it works: Visible low-pressure fun lowers the barrier for people who are not ready for the main room. Try this: Post one weekly patio photo that shows groups mixing naturally rather than posing. |
12.1 The Texas Yard-Game Trio
Cornhole is the breakout star of the modern bar, and it has earned the crown. The game is simple — toss a bean bag at an angled board with a hole in it, three points in the hole, one on the board — but it has become a genuine phenomenon, with a worldwide governing body (the American Cornhole League) running tens of thousands of tournaments a year, a hundred thousand-plus active players, and broadcasts on ESPN. What makes cornhole perfect for a honky tonk isn’t the pro scene, though; it’s that the game is endlessly social, takes almost no skill to start and real skill to master, photographs beautifully, and — the magic words of cornhole — anyone can play, anyone can win. A grandmother and a college kid can be on the same team and both matter. The boards are cheap or buildable, they store easily, and they set up anywhere flat. If you start one yard game, start with cornhole.
Washers is the soul of the thing — the most genuinely Texan game in this book. Depending on where you grew up you might call it washers, washer pitching, or “Texas horseshoes,” and the origin story is pure Texas: the most repeated account traces it to early West Texas oil-field workers who passed the time pitching washers from their derricks. You toss steel washers underhand toward a recessed cup in a box or an in-ground pit some twenty feet away — a ringer in the cup scores big, close scores less — and it rewards a precision that keeps players hooked for hours. Washers carries a heritage and an authenticity that a trendy game never will; for a Texas honky tonk, a set of well-built washer pits is a quiet statement of exactly who you are, and the kind of thing a certain customer will love you forever for having.
Horseshoes is the granddaddy, and it comes with the most romance and the most caution. The classic pitch-the-shoe-at-the-stake game is deeply traditional, evocative, and beloved by an older, often fiercely dedicated crowd. It needs more space than cornhole or washers — proper pits set the regulation distance apart — and, because you’re throwing two-pound chunks of steel, it needs the most careful placement and safety thinking of any game in this book (more on that in the heads-up). But for the venue with the room and the right crowd, a horseshoe pit is a beautiful, old-Texas touch that nothing else replicates.
Beyond the trio, the field is wide and worth knowing: ladder toss (or ladder golf), bocce, giant Jenga and giant Connect Four, ring toss, and the various oversized lawn games that photograph wonderfully and welcome kids and casual players. None carry quite the Texas heritage of washers or the competitive infrastructure of cornhole, but any of them can add color and accessibility to a patio. Mix and match to fit your space and crowd — but the durable core, for most Texas venues, is cornhole and washers, with horseshoes for those with the room.
12.2 The Patio Is a PR Asset
The deeper opportunity in this chapter isn’t any single game — it’s the realization that your outdoor space is an underused asset that the yard games can switch on. Most Texas honky tonks have some exterior: a patio, a deck, a side yard, a back lot, a stretch of gravel. Too often it sits dead, used for nothing but a smoke break and some overflow parking. The yard games turn that dead space into a second room — one with its own crowd, its own hours, and its own character.
Think about what activating the outdoors does for you. It expands your capacity on a busy night, giving people somewhere to go and something to do when the inside is packed. It extends your day, because yard games are perfect for the afternoon and early evening — a Saturday-afternoon cornhole crowd is found money, filling hours that would otherwise be empty. It broadens your appeal, because an outdoor, casual, all-ages game space welcomes families, daytime drinkers, and the people for whom a dark, loud barroom is a little much. And it gives you a whole new bank of content and atmosphere — a sunny patio full of people pitching washers and laughing is some of the most inviting imagery a venue can put out, and it photographs far better than a dim interior.
The Texas reality, of course, is that the outdoors comes with a thermostat problem, and we’ll be honest about it: for a good stretch of the year it is too hot, and the games will move or pause. Plan for the seasons — lean hard into the patio in spring and fall and the cooler evenings, add shade (sails, umbrellas, a roof over part of it), misters, and fans to stretch the usable months, and don’t fight the worst of August. Seasonality isn’t a flaw in the outdoor plan; it’s just a fact to design around, and a great shaded, fanned, well-lit patio buys you far more of the Texas year than a bare lot does.
One framing worth holding onto: the patio with games on it is no longer just outdoor seating — it’s a destination, a reason to come, a thing people choose you for. “Let’s go play cornhole at the bar” is a fundamentally different and more powerful customer intention than “let’s go sit outside.” The games are what turn the space from an amenity into a draw, and the draw is the PR.
A word about the family crowd those daytime games attract, because it’s a real opportunity with a real complication. The all-ages appeal is a genuine strength — a Saturday-afternoon patio full of families is found business and a warm, welcoming image — but a honky tonk is a licensed bar, and minors on a licensed premises come with rules and judgment calls you have to get right (more on that in the heads-up). Decide deliberately how family-friendly you want to be and when: many venues run an open, all-ages, kids-welcome daytime on the patio and then transition to an adults’ room as the evening comes on, and managing that transition — clearly, and with your staff on the same page about it — is part of running the outdoor space well. Done thoughtfully, the daytime family crowd and the nighttime bar crowd are two different, complementary businesses sharing the same patio at different hours. Done carelessly, you blur a line you really don’t want to blur. Choose your approach on purpose rather than letting it just happen.
12.3 Leagues, Tournaments, and the Branded Board
Everything the last chapter said about turning a game into a loyalty machine applies to the yard games too — a casual cornhole board is an amenity; a cornhole league is an institution — so rather than repeat it all, let’s focus on what’s different and especially powerful about organizing the outdoor games.
The yard games are even more tournament-friendly than the floor games. Cornhole in particular is built for the bracket: a single-day cornhole tournament is easy to run, draws players and a watching crowd, has a clear arc and a champion, and makes a natural promotable event — a perfect anchor for a Saturday afternoon, a fundraiser, or a themed party. You can plug into the established cornhole infrastructure (the ACL and similar bodies run sanctioned tournaments and leagues, with free-agent sign-ups and a path to big championships) or run your own casual brackets, exactly as with pool leagues. The blind-draw format, where players are randomly paired, is especially good for a bar tournament because it scrambles strangers into temporary teams and breaks down the clique problem before it can start — everyone plays with everyone.
The accessibility of these games is itself a PR strategy. Because anyone can play cornhole or washers immediately, an outdoor tournament is the most newcomer-friendly event in your whole calendar — the antidote, in activity form, to the in-group wall we warned about. A nervous first-timer who’d never join a pool league will happily toss a few bags, and walk out having competed, won or lost something, and made a few friends. If you want an activity that pulls in genuinely new, genuinely broad crowds, the yard-game tournament is your single best tool.
And here is the yard-game version of the branded-team idea: the branded board. Paint your venue’s name and logo on your cornhole boards. Now every photo taken over those boards — and people photograph cornhole constantly — carries your brand, and if your boards travel to tournaments elsewhere, or players post their games, your name rides along. A beautifully branded set of boards is cheap, it doubles as decor and as a photo backdrop, and it turns every game played on it into a small piece of marketing. It’s the same mobile-advertising logic as the team shirts, at the price of some paint.
12.4 Building and Running the Yard-Game Program
A few practical notes specific to running games outdoors, because the patio has its own logistics that the barroom doesn’t.
You can build most of it cheaply, and that’s part of the charm. Regulation cornhole boards and washer pits are simple enough to build from plywood and lumber, and a venue that builds its own — maybe with a regular who’s handy, maybe as a little project — ends up with custom, branded, characterful equipment for a fraction of the retail cost, plus a story about it. If building isn’t your thing, quality boards and pits are inexpensive to buy. Either way, the equipment cost here is the lowest of any activity in this book, which is exactly why the yard games are the easiest engine to start.
Maintain the space and the gear, because outdoors is harder on both. Sun, rain, and heat wear out boards, bags, and pits faster than indoor equipment; weather ruins a warped board and a moldy bag. Store equipment under cover, replace worn bags, keep the boards in good repair, and tend the playing surface itself — level ground, no trip hazards, decent footing. And light it: a patio that goes dark at sunset stops being usable, so string lights or proper fixtures over the game area both extend the playable hours and make the space inviting and photogenic after dark.
Make the outdoor space genuinely comfortable, or the games won’t carry it. Shade, seating, fans or misters for the heat, lighting for the night, and easy access to the bar so players don’t have to trek inside and lose their place. The games are the reason to go outside; the comfort is what lets people stay outside long enough to run up the bar tab that makes the whole thing pay. A miserable patio with great boards empties out fast; a comfortable one with the same boards holds a crowd all afternoon.
Keep it casual and welcoming above all. The whole magic of the yard games is their easy, anyone-can-join informality — the spontaneous pickup game, the kid learning to toss a bag, the stranger invited into the next round. Don’t over-engineer it into something stiff and serious. A clipboard to sign up for next game, a friendly staffer keeping it moving, and an open, come-on-in spirit are most of what it takes. The yard games run on good-natured ease, and protecting that ease is the main job.
HEADS UP — Outdoor Alcohol, Minors, Heat, Flying Metal, and the Neighbors Moving the party outdoors raises several real issues. First and most important, alcohol and your licensed premises: in Texas, you can generally only serve and allow consumption of alcohol within the area covered by your TABC license, so before patrons carry drinks out to the patio or the back lot, make sure that outdoor space is actually included in your licensed premises — extending service or consumption into an unlicensed area can put your license at risk. Confirm your boundaries with the TABC and amend your license if you’re expanding into new outdoor space. Second, minors: if your daytime yard games draw families, understand that Texas rules govern minors on a licensed premises — including, in some cases, requirements around accompaniment by a parent or guardian and limits that can depend on your license type and your food sales — so know the rules that apply to your specific permit before you market yourself as a family daytime spot, and train your staff on them. Third, heat: this is Texas, and the combination of alcohol, sun, and physical activity is a genuine safety matter, not just a comfort one — keep free water easily available outside, provide real shade, and train staff to watch for patrons who are overheating or who are both over-served and out in the sun, because heat illness on top of alcohol is a real danger. Fourth, projectiles: horseshoes are heavy steel thrown through the air and can cause serious injury, and even washers and bags demand a clear lane — site the pits and courts well away from walkways, seating, parking, and where people congregate, with adequate run-out space and, for horseshoes especially, a real safety buffer. Fifth, the neighbors: an activated outdoor space makes noise, and outdoor noise travels in a way indoor noise doesn’t, so know your local noise ordinances and be a good neighbor about hours and volume — because, as the venues that have died from it can attest, neighbor complaints and the permit and licensing fights they trigger have closed more bars than bad bands ever did. As always, this is a PR and management guide, not legal advice; confirm licensed-premises boundaries and the rules on minors with the TABC, and consult a qualified attorney and your insurer on outdoor service, minors on premises, heat and premises liability, and local noise and permit rules. |
CASE STUDY — The Washer Pits That Make the Place: Heritage You Can Pitch The most instructive yard-game story in Texas isn’t about the flashiest game — it’s about the most rooted one. Consider a place like Austin’s Good Luck Grill, an unpretentious spot that built permanent, in-ground washer pits into its property and made the old Texas game a genuine part of its identity — the kind of detail that gets it featured on local television’s food-and-fun segments and, more importantly, gives a certain kind of Texan a reason to choose it. It’s a small, replicable example of a big idea: that the humblest, most authentic yard game, done permanently and done right, can become part of what a venue is. Walk through why permanent washer pits are such a quietly powerful piece of PR, because every bit of it scales to any honky tonk with a patch of ground. They are radically cheap — two recessed cups, some lumber, a weekend of work — and yet, unlike a rented attraction, they are permanent and owned: they’re there every day, they cost nothing to run, and they belong to your address forever, the ownership principle from Chapter 10 made literal in the dirt. They carry heritage: washers is authentically, originally Texan, born in the oil fields, and a venue that offers it well signals a realness that money can’t buy and that the right customers prize above almost anything. And they are endlessly accessible: anyone can pitch a washer, which makes the pits a magnet for exactly the broad, all-ages, families-and-old-timers crowd that keeps a place alive across generations. Now layer the activities thesis on top. The pits create participation — people pitching, not watching. They create the tribe — the regulars who gather to play, the informal rivalries, the Sunday-afternoon crowd that becomes a community. They create story — the legendary ringer, the grudge match, the newcomer who turned out to be a ringer themselves. And they create the bar-tab economics — a crowd pitching washers on a shaded patio on a slow afternoon is a crowd running tabs on a slow afternoon. All of it from a game you could build for the cost of a few sheets of lumber and some PVC pipe. The lesson is the most encouraging one in this part of the book, especially for the smaller or scrappier venue. You do not need the budget for a fancy attraction or even the modern cornhole craze to build a yard-game identity. You need a patch of ground, a genuinely Texan game built into it permanently, and the good sense to make it welcoming and keep it up. The branded cornhole boards and the sanctioned tournaments are wonderful, and most venues should have them. But never overlook the power of the humblest option: a couple of washer pits in the dirt, free to play and open to all, can root a venue in its place and its heritage as deeply as anything in this book — and send people home saying they found the real thing. |
REAL TALK — The patio reached people the barroom never could Ask an owner who put in a patio with games what surprised them, and you’ll often hear the same thing: it pulled in people they’d never have reached otherwise. The young families who came for a Saturday afternoon because the kids could toss bags while the parents had a beer. The older couple who’d never set foot in the loud, dark barroom but who’ll pitch washers on a shaded patio for hours. The work crew who turned a casual cornhole game into a standing Friday ritual. The outdoor games reach the people a honky tonk’s interior sometimes scares off, and a lot of owners are amazed how much new, broad, daytime business comes from a few hundred dollars of plywood and an afternoon of building. And they’ll tell you the games did something money can’t buy: they made the place feel friendly and open in a way that’s hard to fake. There’s something about a sunny patio full of people playing a simple game together that signals, better than any sign or slogan, you’re welcome here, come on in. That feeling is the whole ballgame, and the yard games conjure it for almost nothing. |
TALK ABOUT IT — “What would make you spend a Saturday out here?” Walk your outdoor space — the patio, the side lot, the gravel out back, whatever you’ve got — with a regular or two and ask them straight: what would make you want to spend a whole Saturday afternoon out here? You’ll get a punch list of cheap, high-return ideas — some games, some shade, some lights, a way to get a drink without losing your spot — drawn from exactly the people you want filling that space. And you’ll likely realize that the deadest part of your property is the cheapest new room you’ll ever open, waiting on a few sheets of plywood and a string of lights. |
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