Despite the 90-degree heat, a crowd of 50-plus people gather behind the Little Longhorn Saloon, waiting for a chicken to make its mark on the wooden bingo board. The bird, Kitty Wells, struts across the painted numbers, snapping up the scattered seeds, mealworm, and corn. “Eat it all up, Kitty,” someone coaxes. “Come on sweet girl.” Cheers and groans arise when the chicken’s dropping plops onto one of the numbered squares. The winners, whose bingo tickets match the fouled number, report to the front of the bar where they’re plied with dollar bills. After following house rules—tip the band and tip the bar—winners can keep the remainder of the pot.
Kitty and another chicken named Emmylou Harris take turns for the four games that span the 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. bingo slot every Sunday afternoon. Each game lasts until the chicken does its duty. Between rounds, performer and employee Dalynn Grace stands on a wooden truck bed trading paper tickets for paper bills—only. If you didn’t bring cash, visit the ATM nestled beneath the cowboy sign.
The idea for Chicken Sh*t Bingo hatched more than 25 years ago when local country musician Dale Watson returned to the bar from a trip to California, where he’d witnessed cow patty bingo. He suggested to Ginny and Don Kalmbach, the saloon’s previous owners, that they downsize the game to feature chickens. Infamously, Ginny said, “That s—’s never gonna last.”
Inside the bar, musicians strum electric guitars and stroke a keyboard on a stage next to a picture of the Little Longhorn Saloon’s current owner, Terry Gaona, cradling a chicken-like a guitar. Plaques for breweries and beer brands plaster the walls and Lone Star flags drape the ceiling. Despite the spirited decor, bingo allows gamblers of all ages. Anya Gronquist, a 6-year-old winner from Hawaii, giggles when she explains the game: “It poops on a number, somebody wins stuff.”
This Sunday afternoon tradition preserves a taste of Austin’s weird factor. It also canonizes the traditional honky-tonks of Texas: Little Longhorn Saloon has hosted country legends like Fingerpistol, Dallas Moore, and James Hand. When Ginny asked Terry, her longtime bartender, and Terry’s husband, to take over the establishment in 2012, Terry hesitated. But considering developers had paved over so many similar venues with garages and condos, Terry decided to “go ahead and keep the iconic institution open.”
After 10 years as a regular attendee, Nick Pierce vouches for the bar’s classic appeal. “There’s not a lot of places left like this. Not just Austin, but everywhere,” he says. “This place is genuine.”
Maintaining a timeless tradition requires some updates behind the scenes. When Ginny ran Chicken Sh*t Bingo, she sold only 57 tickets per round. But through word-of-mouth and press coverage, by 2013, Terry needed to devise a new system to accommodate for the increased number of bingoers. Now, multiple tickets are sold for each of the 57 spots. Terry also took the show on the road with Mobile Chicken Sh*t Bingo, which sets up shop at private events in the Austin area. Other venues, such as Backporch Social Round Rock, The Fieldhouse at the Crossover, and Austin’s Celis Brewery, also routinely host Terry and the chickens for an afternoon of bingo.
While listing Terry’s innovations, Grace gestures at her aunt, who’s seated in a lawn chair by the chicken coop. “She’s taken this to a whole new level,” she says.
