Rewatching ‘Urban Cowboy’ reveals a lost Houston and its iconic honky-tonk era defined by Gilley's

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Long before craft cocktails, food halls and Instagrammable patios took over the region’s social and nightlife, the Houston area had Gilley’s, a Pasadena honky-tonk so enormous and unruly it became a symbol of Texas after John Travolta’s Bud Davis lit up its dance floor in his cowboy boots and conquered the club’s mechanical bull. 

On screen, Travolta’s Bud clocks out of the refinery every night, jumps into his Ford pickup and drives into a world where the towering petrochemical plants along the Ship Channel are an afterthought and the mechanical bull is a rite of passage. Off-screen, that same world drew countless locals and tourists who wanted a taste of what they perceived as an authentic Lone Star State experience.

At its peak, Gilley’s claimed to be the “world’s largest honky-tonk,” complete with several bars, a recording studio and a constant rotation of live music acts. When “Urban Cowboy” director James Bridges brought cameras inside, he captured an iconic nightclub, yes, but he also painted a portrait of Houston’s working class at a time when the region was booming (but inching toward a bust), messy and proud of its rough edges. 

And for a while, the film genuinely reshaped how the rest of the country imagined Texas. Western wear sales spiked, country music surged and Hollywood rediscovered the appeal of the working man. 

Watching the movie in the year of our Lord 2025, what stands out isn’t just the boot-scooting drama, the romance (if you could call it that) or the bull rides. It’s how “Urban Cowboy” froze Houston in amber right before the skyline, the energy economy and the city’s cultural identity dramatically shifted. 

It was a version of Houston that, were it not for some of the familiar skyscrapers, rows of refineries and highways, would be unrecognizable to today’s average Houstonian, who might know the city better as a hub of immigrants, a medical powerhouse, a town where folks wearing cowboy hats and boots are only common during rodeo season or when the college kids go out to line dance in the Heights. 

Fast forward to the present, three decades after Gilley’s burned in 1990, and there are few places like it in Houston, and none live up to the magic of the original. 

In my trips to country bars around town (which, admittedly, have not been many), here’s what I’ve encountered: NASA engineers from the northeast playing cowboy, bright-pink light-up cowgirl hats, and terrible country music, nothing compared to the Charlie Daniels bangers you hear in “Urban Cowboy.” 

What made the film popular is now an “aesthetic” or a “vibe” that non-Texans try so hard to match. And I say that as a non-Texan myself!

(One of the worst offenders, in my humble opinion, is Austin’s Backyard in the Heights, a bar that borrows its name and aesthetic from an entirely different Texas city. It’s incredibly ironic that Houston, once the star of country nightlife, now imports its Western identity from the Hill Country.)

But I believe this shift says less about Houston losing something and more about how the city has evolved. Houston didn’t outgrow Gilley’s so much as it outgrew the need for any single place or movie to define it. The film captured a moment when one club (along with its accompanying subculture and killer soundtrack) felt big enough to stand in for the whole region. 

Today’s Houston simply doesn’t work like that. It’s too sprawling, too diverse, too influenced by every city or country its newcomers bring with them. 

And while that combination might not make for a blockbuster Hollywood hit, it does make for a version of Houston that’s infinitely more interesting than the one a movie studio could dream up.