The Magic of a Hotel Bar

Outside, the night is humid and flat. But inside, it feels like the setting of a Raymond Carver story. Standing by the stone archway entrance to the bar, like two cylindrical centurion guards, is a pair of 10-foot rusted tanks. They face a hotel lobby full of old-fashioned leather chairs and couches and checkered tile mixed with exposed industrial beams and pipes and valves. Through the archway is a huge Castilian chamber, a sort of steampunk-chic bar and lounge with tall cement pillars, an arched cement ceiling, an unfinished wooden floor, and a faintly glowing brick fireplace.

In the corner, a man in a pink polo shirt talks quietly into his phone. Two other men, still wearing their golf clothes, share cocktails and laughs on the couches by the entrance. Behind the bar, the two bartenders on duty are recounting a few of their favorite stories about the place: how the building used to be the Pearl brewery and this room was the bottling room, how the chandelier was made with the brass wheel from the old bottle-labeling machine, how a certain lead actor from the Lonesome Dove miniseries likes to come in and sit in a corner upstairs, away from the crowd. As soon as the bartenders see the actor, they start making his margarita.

This is the Sternewirth Tavern & Club Room at Hotel Emma, in San Antonio. The bar’s name comes from the “Sternewirth Privilege,” an 1800s tradition that entitled employees of breweries to free beer during the workday. It’s the kind of place that shows up on all sorts of Best Hotel Bars lists, understandably. On top of the celebrity sightings, custom cocktails, and modish décor—some of the giant brewery tanks have