Texas Venue Directory
Tom Sefcik Dance Hall
Historic family-owned dance hall · Temple
Historic Seaton-area dance hall established in 1923, with recurring weekend live music, Sunday dancing, a wooden dance floor, and a downstairs bar and game room.
About this room
Tom Sefcik built this two-story clapboard hall in 1923 and put the dance floor upstairs over the bar, so the tavern below hears the dancers shuffling through the ceiling. His daughter Alice Sefcik Sulak, born in the house next door, took the hall over in 1970 and was still running Sunday dances into her late eighties, believed to make her the longest-serving individual dance hall owner-operator in Texas history. The music shifted from Czech polka to country as the audience did, and Sulak, a Czech-language vocalist and saxophonist, made the switch deliberately. The Country Music Hall of Fame recognized the hall as a Pioneer Dance Hall in 1995. It is now third-generation family-owned.
History sources checked August 29, 2026.
Things you may not know
- Tom Sefcik sold exactly one brand of beer. His line to customers was that you could have any beer you wanted, as long as it was Pearl. The twenty-foot mahogany bar he installed is still the bar. Source
- The dance floor is upstairs, up a steep pre-ADA stairwell that the regulars climb every Sunday. Sulak's own bad back eventually made the climb hard in her own building. Source
- Bands still play snowball dances. The bandleader blows a whistle mid-song and every couple on the floor switches partners. Source
- The room used to have a bullring, a standing circle of men in the middle of the floor waiting for a chance to cut in. It is gone now. Source
- The windows are advertisements for businesses that no longer exist: painted glass panels for long-gone local concerns, still in place. Source
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