Texas Venue Directory
Donn’s Depot
Honky-tonk, piano bar, and dance venue · Austin
Austin music venue known for piano-led entertainment, country music, and social dancing.
About this room
In 1972 a civil engineer and real estate man named Bob Ogden bought a nineteenth-century wooden train depot out at McNeil, north of Austin, and hauled it to a rough stretch of West Fifth Street. He added retired railcars, opened it as McNeil Depot Saloon, and hired a Goodyear tire salesman named Donn Adelman to play the baby grand. Adelman, an Austin native and a serious pianist working country classics, lounge standards and the American songbook, bought the place in 1978, renamed it after himself, and quit the tire business the following year. He, his wife Arleen and their son Matt have run it since. It is a piano bar, a honky-tonk, a dance hall and occasionally a wedding chapel, and it has changed almost not at all.
History sources checked August 29, 2026.
Things you may not know
- The depot cost $300, the price paid for the building itself before moving it. Source
- The ladies' room is a caboose. One of the retired railcars was retrofitted as the women's restroom and still is; another provides seating. The cars came up the line from San Antonio. Source
- The piano player bought the bar. Ogden hired Adelman as house musician; six years later Adelman owned the place. Source
- The popcorn has a rule: it gets made once a day, and when it runs out, it is out. Source
- George Strait once played an impromptu set here when the Depot's piano player held his wedding reception in the bar. Years later Strait spotted Adelman in the audience when they were both working different rooms in Las Vegas. Source
- It had one of the earliest mixed-drink licenses in Travis County, which the original owner used as a marketing hook. Source
Venue details
Plan your night
Official sources
Dance lessons
This venue has a current or repeatedly documented lesson program in Dance Lessons in the Halls. Open the official lesson source there and confirm final details before traveling.
Around this room
Culture, craft & learning
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