My Favorite Country Bars

I love country dancing. I started with couples dancing in Texas and after moving to Maryland, I learned line dancing too. This is a limited sample of fun places to dance C&W that I've found in my travels:

1. Cancun Cantina, Hanover, MD: This is where I live 2-3 nights out of the week. Sometimes the music gets a little stale, but this bar near BWI Airport has the best combination in the DC area of a good-sized (1600 sq. ft.) dance floor and a crowd that knows how to dance with energy and enthusiasm.
   
   To fully enjoy yourself here you need to like line dancing as well as couples dancing, though there's also rock/hip-hop outside on The Deck. The nights to go are Wednesday (Ladies Night, more line dance-oriented), Friday, and Saturday (best for two-stepping).


2. The Saddle Rack, Fremont, CA: This long-time San Jose institution reopened a few miles up the road several years ago, in a modern facility with two dance floors. The last time I was there, one floor was oriented toward line dances while the other focused on couples dancing.
   
   With big crowds and a lot of good dancing, this is the only place to go in the San Francisco Bay/Silicon Valley Area but it's a good one.


3. Cowboys, Arlington, TX: This is where the high-level competition dancers hang out in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area because of the instructor, Terri Bordeaux, and they have some spectacular dancers here including very good practitioners of West Coast Swing. There's a house band on many nights.
   
   This is not the same place as the Dallas location, which lacks advanced dancers and isn't anywhere near as fun.


4. Big Texas Dance Hall & Saloon, Clear Lake, TX: The dancing level in this mostly DJ-only place is only average, but the two-stepping is still enjoyable here and on a Saturday night this enormous place is hopping. It can be hard though to find someone to dance with unless you already know them, because by the time you navigate to where they were they're gone.
   
   As with Cowboys, don't confuse this with their other location (in Spring, on the north side of Houston) which has mediocre dancing and one of those race track dance floors with a bar in the middle of the floor.


5. Cowboys, Albuquerque, NM: [Closed as of early 2009. Graham Central Station is still open.] The level of dancing here is kind of low but this is the place to be on a Thursday night in Albuquerque. The large dance floor is sunken into a pit with the bandstand on one end, and the place has a line out the door starting about 10 pm. (They're not affiliated with the Cowboys locations in Texas.)


6. Cancun Cantina West, Hagerstown, MD: Cantina West would be a lot higher on my list if their dance floor wasn't so bad. You can't slide on it at all unless they put baby powder down, and then it becomes so slick it's out of control. But they're more willing to try new songs and dances here than the original Cantina. Unfortunately they're no longer country on Friday nights. The floor is about 1000 sq. ft., reasonable for this area.
   


7. Nick's, Alexandria, VA: People here know how to dance but the club is very small (the danceable part of the floor is only about 600 sq. ft., though it's a very nice wooden floor). They have a karaoke bar in the back with a smaller floor where the young crowd hangs out. If I lived nearer I'd probably go a lot more often. This is where all of the Blackie's refugees wound up when that club closed.
   


8. The Promenade Ballroom, Baltimore, MD: OK, so this isn't really a country bar but this is where I went when I wanted to learn West Coast Swing. The instructors are both excellent dancers and excellent teachers (not always the same thing). It's got a huge 5500 sq. foot hardwood dance floor, though it has pillars in the middle of the floor.
   

Related:

• DC-MD-VA Country Bands Calendar (6/1/09)
• Line Dancing 101 (11/15/08)
• Country Dancing In Portland, OR (6/7/09)
• Phoenix: Country Dancing and Dining (12/15/08)