901 N. Alamo · Since 1886
A 140-year-old Victorian that has seen three husbands and a Nazi missile — and still knows how to throw a party.
She went up in 1886 as a two-story Queen Anne Victorian — turrets, fretwork, a wraparound porch, and the kind of good bones that outlive everyone who's ever lived in them. For 140 years she's been a home, a business, and a witness, and she has never once been boring.
Step inside today and she's all dressed up: oxblood walls, pressed tin ceilings, crystal chandeliers throwing light off gilt frames, brocade and lace on every surface, and gallery walls of "family" photos who may or may not be related to anyone. Above the bar hangs the Great Portrait of Yaya, keeping an eye on the whole party.
Grandma's house, glamorized.
![The 1946 Armistice Day parade with the captured V-2 Buzz Bomb in front of 901 N. Alamo](MEDIA/1946 Armistice Day parade SATX "wonder weapon".jpg)
Long before the chandeliers, the old Victorian rolled up her sleeves and became ACE Brake Service — a working garage with oil under its fingernails and a cash register where the bar now stands.
Then came Armistice Day, 1946. The parade rolled down N. Alamo with a captured German V-2 in tow — the U.S. Army's "Buzz Bomb," the so-called "wonder weapon," flatbedded clear out of Kelly Field and staged right in front of the garage. A photograph of that strange afternoon survived, and it hangs in the bar to this day.
The kind of building that has seen things.
Silver curls, martini in hand, and a microphone she will not be putting down — Yaya is the party-MC abuela who runs this house. She's the immortalized in the Great Portrait above the bar, watching you with the warm, unblinking love of a grandmother who knows exactly what you did last weekend.
She holds the mic, the playlist, and the liquor license. She'll roast you, refill you, and then make you cry-laugh into your drink — all in the same breath. Come for the cocktails; stay because Yaya decided you're family now.
Mind your manners. Lose your inhibitions. Sing every word.
Every good abuela has a code, and Yaya's hangs framed by the door where everyone can see it. Read it once on your way in. You'll be quoting it by midnight.
Mind your manners. Lose your inhibitions.
— The House Code —
A 140-year-old house, a great portrait, and a grandmother who throws the best party in San Antonio. Pull up a chair.