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The 04 Lounge

Benny kept it a bar.

He drank here when the sign still said Dee & Jim's. He bought it, got a liquor license, and named it for the zip code. The room did not become something else.

"The right people are going to find this place. The rest never will."

Italo "Benny" Pezzi, to Anthony Head for Austin Monthly, 6 Dec 2022. Regulars repeated it to the Statesman in 2024.

The family part

Come once and it is a dark bar with two tables. Come on purpose and people know your name. At Christmas the stockings go up on the liquor shelves, Benny's included. The short rule from the regulars: don't be a jerk.

Christmas stockings with regulars' names hung across the back bar at The 04 Lounge.

The building, before the name

Michael Barnes at the Statesman wrote the long version. This is the part you need before you walk in.

  1. 1950s

    The concrete box was Halo Haven, a steakhouse. The neighborhood story says it did other business too. The room was always small.

  2. 1965

    Donna Pearl Bai opened Donna's Lounge. She, then her daughter Dee, ran a neighborhood bar here for decades. A fire damaged the building in 1982. They reopened.

  3. Dee & Jim's

    Dee and her husband Jim Pierce kept the regulars, including turkey on Thanksgiving. The jukebox was already part of the room. They sold to Benny in 2008.

  4. 2008

    Benny named it for 78704 and got the liquor license. Customer Chris McLemore later built the striped wood bar. It went in during the pandemic. A carved bust of Albert Solano, who started the Veterans Day fish fry, watches the pool tables.