Spare Key

Spare Key is a great cocktail bar in the heart of Midtown. It is a little hard to find because there is only a neon key sign, no actual sign for the restaurant. It is above Cook and Collins. You have to go inside the restaurant and walk up the stairs. The staff is friendly, it’s quiet enough to have an actual conversation, and the drinks are delicious.
My boyfriend and I are new to the cocktail world. We told Zach, and he asked us what we liked. He made us each drinks thay were personalized to our tastes and made sure we liked them. The service here is awesome! The cocktail menu is extensive and if something is not on the menu they will make it for you. The bar tenders are talented and watching them make drinks is mesmerizing. If you are even a bit interested in cocktails try Spare Key!

Went there for my birthday with 15 other friends. First of all, free valet parking! Secondly, amazing drinks. Thirdly, super laid back and classy! Couldn’t have had a better night!

Perfect oasis of hand crafted cocktails in the middle of otherwise douchebaggery. Enjoy a great beverage in a wonderful environment. If you don’t like this bar then I don’t like you.

Nice refuge from the fratty bars that surround it, and excellent cocktail selection. The lounge is located on the second floor of Cook and Collins, and features a dark, cozy environment perfect for a relaxing, low-​key night out. I highly recommend the Millennium Ridge cocktail — extremely tasty.

When you think of Midtown, you think of frattastic debauchery. I’ve had my fair share of drunken nights in Midtown but the Spare Key ended up being a nice surprise. If you’re a fan of Anvil, Spare Key was started by one of Anvil’s very own. Located on the second floor of Cook & Collins, the Spare Key is a secluded bar with a small patio overlooking Midtown.
Like Anvil, the focus is on craft cocktails. No you’re not going to find Bud Light here or Jack & Coke. It’s time to advance fellas. The cool things is they have a special menu with 50 cocktails: one from and inspired by each state in the country. They also give you a little card so you can keep track of how many states you’ve tried and you win free drinks if you get through all 50. I started off my adventure with the state where I was born (New York) and the state where I grew up (Massachusetts).
The bartender is a nice guy and there is a heater on the patio. Check it out to get away from the hustle and bustle of Midtown for some quality cocktails.

Spare key– where have you been? While seeking such a place previously had been futile I finally found the perfect place to relax, have a well mixed drink by a truly knowledgeable mixologist who cannily can made exactly what you had in mind. All this and tucked away right in my midtown neighborhood.
Spare key is right above Cook & Collins and the only signage is the neon outline of a key visible in the window. It is dark, cozy and intimate with the right compliment of comfortable chairs banquettes, and bar seating as well as a small outdoor area which overlooks the scene on Brazos.
The crowd is a bit more into a more subdued experience than what most of Midtown offers, but lots of fun and banter at the bar.
Chris is great and he will make you feel welcome and at home.
You can purchase food downstairs at Cook and Collins and they will bring it up to the Key, which is very convenient.
Come up, take a seat at the rail if it’s nice out, order something out of the ordinary, sit back and watch the crowd below. It’s a great view and you can people watch without participating in the madness.
One of my favorite downtown places.

GREAT BAR! It’s a little more on the high end side. Drinks can cost up to 12 – 15 bucks but they are worth it!
Sometimes they will have specials though and those will cost from 4 – 7
The bartender is a genius If you just tell him what you’re in the mood for he will whip something up. Your bf/​gf just dumped you and you want a post break up drink? He got you. Want something light and sweet? Coming right up. Want something that tastes like bad decisions? Wish granted.
I highly recommend a Pimms cup.
overall great bar!

Spare Key is everything an adult’s cocktail bar should be. It’s sleek, modern, with an appropriate amount of leather, chandeliers, and faux fur footstools required for its address. Tucked away on Cook & Collin’s second floor, it floats blissfully above the Midtown messes below. Come here to escape the madness and enjoy an expertly crafted cocktail.
Spare Key keeps its offerings fresh, but can craft numerous classics with high-​quality booze. Chris Frankel, known from his days at Anvil and RDG + Bar Annie, can improvise and create a personal cocktail on the spot based on personal tastes. For ideas, there’s a Fifty States map with a classic cocktail for each state. So sip away, expand your horizons, and jam out to curated 80s jams.

Love this place, every time I go here t never fails I always have a great time. The atmosphere is amazing love the crowd. The bartenders are amazing. The drinks are very good I’m always trying something different. This past weekend I got to try out two new drinks the Coconut Grove and Suffering Bastard even though it wasn’t on the menu Zack one of the bartenders working that night recommend it to me.

Just discovered this place.
Cool little place in midtown. Didn’t seem to have the douchy vibe other places in the area have. Small but comfortable. Great drinks made well.
They have a nice happy hour: beer, wine, and about four cocktails including drink of the day which was solid.
Bartender was a good guy and knew his drinks.

Really chill spot. Good drinks and very good customer service. I will definitely return!

Great place! So the atmosphere is chill (although it feels like it will be pretentious… It’s not though) and dark (romance woohoo!). The drinks are superb! Great cocktail geniuses… They know how to make drinks. The attitude is also fantastic! Great vibe and the staff is wonderful. Oh and if you want cheap crap liquor… They don’t have it. Their rail is most peep’s too shelf! Yay!

Awesome quiet place for craft cocktails. It’s always best to see the mixologists at work. Chris, the manager is awesome! He enjoys traveling and has made cocktails for everywhere he’s been. It’s definitely different than the rest of Midtown. They sometimes have specialty happy hours and some months they showcase a specific country like for September they are doing Mexico for Mexico’s independence.

A friend told me about this place, and once I discovered that the owner Chris used to work at Anvil, I was sold. I had already been to Cook & Collins before, but I don’t think Spare Key was open yet. I feel like this place is Midtown’s best kept secret. I couldn’t even find a website for this place (turns out there’s a link on the C&C website).
My girlfriends and I had dinner at C&C and then headed upstairs for drinks around 8pm or so. This place is so small, but the intimacy of it is very appealing. All of the tables and seating areas were available (inside and outside) so we didn’t have a problem getting seats. By the time we left at 10p, all the tables were full and it was standing room only. It wasn’t obnoxiously crowded, but there were definitely a lot of people there.
The craft cocktail drink selections are awesome! My friend and I really love Pimm’s Cup which wasn’t on the menu. We asked the bartender if they had the ingredients to make one (which they did). Chris even went downstairs to get cucumbers (you can’t have a proper Pimm’s Cup without cucumber). It was so good! After the Pimm’s, I had the Gin Gin Mule which I believe is the drink for New York (on the Unlock the States game). I was contemplating getting a punch card, but noticed that a lot of the drinks were whiskey, bourbon, or rum based and I don’t care for those. Plus there’s a two drink limit in terms of punches so you have to visit pretty often to complete the card. Seeing as how I live outside of the loop, I don’t see myself coming here that often to complete the punch card. We met a guy though who had completed about 30 states and he was definitely on a mission to complete the card. The bartenders told us that first place winner will have a drink named after them. That’s pretty cool.
The overall ambiance of this place is great. It was darkly lit to create a more intimate feel. But this place is low key and great for groups. It’s nice to be able to have a conversation with someone across the table. Also the 80s playlist that they had going was fantastic! I’d come back here just for the music.
The only downside is the bathroom. It’s a single restroom and the toilet is really high up. My feet were dangling like a child (they do have a step stool though). Awkward to say the least. I suppose you could go downstairs to C&C if necessary. At any rate, I had a great time here and I’m looking forward to coming back to try some of the other drinks on the menu.

I tried Spare Key for the first time this past Thursday (June 4^th). Only swinging by for a quick HH drink, I was interested in what a newer Midtown bar looked like, especially with the billing of being run by a former Anvil guy.
The experience was mildly disappointing. Let’s start with the aesthetic. Very dark color palate in the bar with an odd choice of accent materials. It also feels almost sparsely decorated? As if a new resident still moving in, still filling out the space. I won’t harp too much on this because I have enjoyed many places that weren’t expertly curated from a design standpoint. We’ll just leave it at less than impressive.
On to the business: Sazerac. I figured this was a staple of their HH menu, something I usually enjoy, and a fairly decent base measuring stick to see how a bar performs. If that is the case, then Spare Key is in trouble. Well done cocktails should not still burn and smell of alcohol. This drink offered little balance, was too dry, and hastily made. I guess the lone plus of it was the garnish was well cut and it was boozy?
With all the great bars Houston has to offer, both classic and newly arriving, I will not likely return to Spare Key soon.

OH YESSSSS. This place is a laidback gem and quite addictive.
This place continually fuels my cocktail ADD/​ADHD (I blame Anvil for developing this with their 100 list!) with the states + dc menu. All during the week I pine at which next two state cocktails I’ll get to sample the next time I hop into the bar. I love the idea of the states menu and how thoughtfully the drinks for each state have been selected. The menu provides a brief explanation as to why each drink represents the various states — which gives the more curious cocktail aficionado an opportunity to learn more about cocktail history.
This bar doesn’t have a big sign yet, so look for cook & collins, go upstairs and look for the teal illuminated key on the wall. Spare Key is right in the middle of midtown which can be bad on the weekends because parking may be iffy (I saw about 4 – 5 cars being towed on my way to this bar this past Thursday!!!). Tip: use the cook & collins valet (complimentary for spare key too!) and even if past 10pm (cook & collins’ closing time), they’ll come upstairs to give you your key and you can you leave your key in the lot all night! The valet works on tips so using them actually costs less than parking in the $ 10 lots around the bar.
The bar ambiance is chill and Chris Frankel is an ABSOLUTE cocktail genius.

Great low key bar. And so peaceful considering its in midtown. Great crafted drinks, awesome 80’s music and just retro scene. But most importantly drinks are yummy and powerful. Love it!

I came here for a CMYE on a cool and sunny Wednesday night. Parking was easy, valet style for Cook and Collins but also is complimentary for Spare Key. Walk up the stairs from CC and you’ll be in a cozy lounge decked out in shag benches and upholstered chic chairs. And if you choose to sit with a large group, there’s a big booth. The bar is visually pleasing with a gorgeous view of Houston cityscape through the back window. The drink menu is crafty and yummy. Tonight, I ordered the bar special, daiquiri with light rum. Mr. Chris made it himself and it was light and perfect. The bathroom is unisex and be sure to wear your high heels since it’s raised up. A sight and experience you’ll have to enjoy yourself, or with a partner.

Bobandy: «Mr. Lahey, is this you talking or the liquor?»
Jim ‘Simon’ Lahey: «Randy, I am the liquor.»
Chris Frankel (formerly of Anvil) brings the magic world of liquor to life in a brand new upscale space in Midtown that is casual, cozy, charming, and relaxed. Chris himself greeted us on the stairs up from Cook & Collins to welcome us aboard the S.S. Day Drinkin’ and let the space as well as the cocktails speak for themselves. They speak pretty clearly and loudly that this place from stem to stern is fantastic.
Spare Key is upscale without being pretentious. Very comfortable and serene seating options range from the booth, raised long tables, and the fabulous shag benches over by the window fronting Bremond are so nice I want twenty of them in my living room. The art on the wall and decorating flourishes are interesting and offers pleasant atmosphere in the best way. The mirrors add to the noir mystique of the overall feel that this is a hidden speakeasy just waiting to be discovered by the right sort of upstanding people that know the password. Eddie Valiant would come here investigating Jessica Rabbit on the order of R.K. Maroon for the sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, rather than returning to the same hidden speakeasy from the first film with Marvin Acme’s disppearing ink. But just in case they haven’t changed the password for continuity, then the password is «Walt sent me» — and if that doesn’t work, try Alohomora (or «guest» as in the case of Algersoft if all else fails.)
Chris himself is behind the bar pouring cocktails along with another non-​Chris bartender. Chris prepared my sazerac ($ 6 on the happy hour menu) with a smile and it tasted like pure happiness out of a glass. Garnished with the small swirl of lemon peel the presentation even looked like it was smiling back at you and giving you a sensual Lucille Bluth wink of the eye mid-​drink. This is a sazerac that belongs in the realm of New Orleans legitimacy, but is available here in our fine town on this side of the Louisiana state line.
Located in Midtown across Brazos from Specs Midtown, across Bremond from Jimmy John and Doghouse, and on the second floor above the Cook & Collins it is located near stuff of course, but is THE place to be all on its own. The space is relatively small offering an intimate sort of environment to hang out and relax with good people over nice drinks. This is a sophisticated cocktail place for sensible people, I hope it does not turn into a typical Midtown place where middle aged men think it is appropriate to line up Jäger bombs and shout «EXTREME» like they do in other Midtown bars that scare away pretty much everyone not wearing an Ed Hardy or Affliction shirt.
There is street parking out on Brazos and you can also use the valet for Cook & Collins but street parking is a better way to live your life so you don’t need to worry about the valets rifling through your Magic the Gathering mana land cards you have stowed in the glovebox, because where else would you put them.
We did have a shortage of nice bars in town that you could take genteel company expecting a tasty cocktail — but now thanks to the Spare Key, we have a primo spot offering up exactly what the doctor ordered. I like this bar. This is a nice bar. You should stop by and have a tea party. And by «tea party» I mean drink hard liquor while the sun is still out. Or after the sun is down, you could probably do that just as well if that’s how you want to live your life.

Love th is place! The view through the window above the bar is one of the best pictures of downtown. The «bartender’s choice» has never let us down! Reasonably priced too! The wine list is very interesting, but I haven’t had a chance to try it yet. Love the décor. Very Gothic Baroque! The Harmony in Red is my favorite house cocktail so far! Cherrs!