How do you get into Secret Garden?
We have not confirmed it. Secret Garden is in the directory because it described as secret, and that is the whole of what we can stand behind about its door.
Drinks of the era
We have not seen this venue’s own list, so what follows is the period rather than the bar: Jack Rose, Diamondback, and Brown Derby are all drinks of this era, and each links to its origin and its build.
The building
Documented — Secret Garden occupies the State National Bank Building, a property listed on the National Register of Historic Places under reference number 82004843. The listing is a federal record maintained by the National Park Service, and the nomination document is the primary source for the building’s architectural and social history.
National Register reference 82004843 · NPS nomination document
Where Secret Garden sits
Secret Garden is in Houston, Texas, in Harris County, in the Southwest of the United States.
Our directory currently lists ten speakeasies and hidden bars in Houston. The full list is on our guide to hidden bars in Houston.
Measured from the map pins, the closest of those to Secret Garden are Sonderbar Internationale, about 300 m away, Speakeasy Lounge, about 300 m away, and The Secret Group, about 1.5 km away.
Texas holds 110 listed venues in this directory. See them all on our Texas speakeasy guide.
Prohibition in Texas
Texas did not wait for the federal government. Statewide prohibition took effect here in 1918, two years before the Eighteenth Amendment came into force nationally on 17 January 1920. By the time the Volstead Act was being enforced across the country, Texas already had an established illegal trade and the habits that went with it.
More on the period in our history of Prohibition in Texas.
What the newspapers recorded in Texas
Searching the Library of Congress run of Texas newspapers for speakeasy, blind pig and bootlegger across 1920 to 1933 returns dated pages anyone can open. These are from Texas:
- El Paso herald, May 27, 1920 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- Brownsville herald, July 2, 1922 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The Snyder signal, June 11, 1920 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- Laredo weekly times, August 15, 1920 — read the page at the Library of Congress
Planning a visit
You can reach Secret Garden by phone on (832) 350-6595, through its own website, and on Facebook.
The address is 409 Travis St, Houston, TX 77002-1885. Open in Google Maps.
What we have confirmed
For Secret Garden we hold street address, telephone number, official website, social accounts, and a listed-building record. We do not yet hold opening hours, a published drinks list, or an online booking link.
It is in the directory because its own name calls it secret and the map tags on the record mark it a cocktail bar.
Overture Maps carries this venue; OpenStreetMap has no matching record.
The source data classifies the premises as a bar.