CountryTexasLive Music

Cowboys Dancehall

Alamo Heights, San Antonio

The world's largest honky-tonk, a Texas legend accommodating 5,000 dancers on its iconic hardwood floor with live country music most nights of the week.

Founded

1981

Capacity

5,000

Hours

Wednesday–Sunday 7

Area

Alamo Heights

About Cowboys Dancehall

Cowboys Dancehall in San Antonio holds a legitimate claim to being the world's largest honky-tonk, a 5,000-capacity institution that is as fundamental to Texas culture as the Alamo itself. The venue's enormous hardwood dance floor — one of the largest in the state — fills with couples two-stepping and line dancing to live country music on most nights of the week, creating a spectacle of Texas tradition that has been drawing locals and tourists alike since 1981. The scale of Cowboys is genuinely staggering: multiple bars, a stage large enough to accommodate the biggest names in country music, and a crowd that skews genuinely local rather than touristy, all preserving the authentic dancehall spirit that has made it a pilgrimage site for country music fans worldwide. Free dance lessons on selected evenings make it accessible to newcomers.

History

Cowboys Dancehall opened in 1981 and grew to become the definitive venue of its kind in Texas, hosting virtually every major country artist of the past four decades. Its massive scale did not dilute its authenticity — the venue has consistently attracted genuine country music fans and maintained the traditions of Texas dancehall culture through waves of genre evolution.