The Scoot Inn should have a new owner by next week. The man named Casino, who owns Casino El Camino on Sixth Street, confirmed that he’s days away from closing a deal to take over the Scoot Inn from co-owners James Stockbauer and Kevin Crutchfield. “We’re going to keep the name, but the format will be different,” Casino said Thursday.
A place to score heroin when it was Red’s Scoot Inn, the dive at E. 4th and Navasota accomodated the earliest Eastside hipsters
Though his Sixth Street institution is known for burgers worth waiting two hours for, Casino said grub at the new/old joint will be provided by food trailers. Live music would be limited to special occasions like SXSW or during the ROT bike rally.
The current incarnation of Scoot Inn will close with a blowout Aug. 31 starring the Hickoids and a host of others.
Stockbauer and company will now turn their full attention to the old wood and stone building on San Gabriel and 24th St. which they’ve renovated into a bar called Freedmen’s. Grand opening date has yet to be made public. That historic building housed Jacob Fontaine’s Gold Dollar newspaper for African Americans in the late 1800s. The Franzetti Italian Grocery took over the location from 1919 until the 1950s.
In 1876 Jacob Fontaine, published the first issue of the Gold Dollar at 2402 San Gabriel St. (above), in the freedman’s settlement of Wheatville. A slave for the first 57 years of his life, Jacob named his paper after the gold coin his sister gave him when he was freed in 1865. Two years later, he organized Austin’s First Baptist Church for Colored and in 1873 the Mount Zion Baptist Church.
It’s at 24th and San Gabriel, not 25th.
After two months of negotiations our bar buyer prospect backed out. Interested in a group that can man-up with no hassles. Contact the owner Jim @ freedmensbar@gmail.com. Capacity 850, 1/3 acre, SX venue with active MB late hours.