She was little, and so was the club she owned and operated on north Burnett Road in Austin. But the impact this little spot and little woman had on Austin’s music community is the stuff of legend. From launching the Chicken $hit Bingo legacy in earnest, to being a proving ground for dozens of artists, and a destination spot for hundreds of true country music fans, Miss Ginny took a tiny and run-down church-looking building barely big enough for a dance floor, and turned it into a country music Mecca.
Originally opened nearly 60 years ago as Dick’s Little Longhorn Saloon, Dick hired Ginny Kalmbach as a waitress a few years later. Ginny became close with both Dick and his wife, who both would ultimately die of Cancer. To Ginny’s surprise, when Dick died in 1982, he bequeathed the bar to her, and Dick’s Little Longhorn Saloon became Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon.
Ginny, who had grown up on classic country music, chose to make her incarnation of the bar into a live music venue, despite the extremely cramped quarters. Instead of prohibiting the congregation of country fans, the small space became a legend in its own right, and an Austin honky tonk fixture in line with The Broken Spoke and Continental Club. Read more from Saving Country Music Here.
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