Ken M.
Yelp
This place has the trappings of an authentic honky-tonk. It has the size, wooded areas, dueling mechanical bulls, gift store, wraparound bar, kitchen, banquet room, etc. I love the rich history of musicians who have played here over the decades, shown in framed, autographed photos covering all of the walls. The Grizzly Rose takes pride in providing live country music, five nights per week. During my visit on a Saturday night, I enjoyed listening and dancing to the music of Duey & Unbroken.
The 40,000 square feet of this country dance hall is impressive. Surprisingly, only 2,500 square feet is allocated to the dance floor. This is too small for the demand placed on it during a Saturday night. The front half of the dance floor is devoted to country swing dancing, while the back half is reserved for line dancing. This leaves no room for progressive partner dancing, i.e., two-step (as is normal across Texas). Country swing could not have been the prevailing form of partner dancing here since the inception of this honky-tonk in 1989. So, what year did it displace two-step?
I enjoyed the line dance lesson at 7 p.m., followed by the country swing dance lesson at 8:15 p.m. Strangely, two-step is how the opening pattern taught for country swing, before it abruptly switches to country swing. Yet, they refer to all of this as country swing. This supports my suspicion that country swing hijacked two-step at some point in the history of this honky-tonk. If this is how locals here are brought up on country dancing, they're in for a surprise, if and when they go to honky-tonks across Texas, where two-step prevails.
Given how crowded the dance floor gets, they might consider expanding it by another 1,000 feet or more. Then it might be possible to spare enough room on the perimeter to bring back progressive partner dancing (two-step, three-step, partner cowboy cha-cha, etc.).
The main seating and walkways are concrete ground, which can wear on your feet. Therefore, I doubt the average person lasts more than a few hours of dancing before throwing in the towel.