Abhiroop Das
Created by Matthew McConaughey & Woody Harrelson, Lee Eisenberg, and David West Read, Apple TV+’s ‘Brothers’ takes the real-life friendship between actors Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, popular for working together in ‘EDtv,’ and later ‘True Detective’ season 1, and crafts a rather unique story around it. While on a family trip to Matthew’s ranch, Woody discovers that the two of them might be half brothers, and that sets him on a journey to do anything but take a DNA test to uncover the truth. On his way, he even walks back to an old bar, the Saddle Saloon, that his father used to go to, but what starts as a routine pitstop soon gives way to an adventure of its own.
Saddle Saloon is a Fictional Bar That Serves as a Lynchpin for the Story
Saddle Saloon is the name of a fictional bar in Lockhart, Texas, that features very prominently in the first two episodes of ‘Brothers.’ Depicted as the watering hole that Woody Harrelson used to frequent as a child, along with his in-universe father, Clive Harrelson, the bar does not appear to have any real-life antecedents. Instead, this backstory of sorts relies on a fictionalized world brought into existence by Woody, Matthew McConaughey, Lee Eisenberg, David West Read, and others within the creative team.
Another detail in the show is that the Saddle Saloon is also where Woody drank alcohol for the first time, but that too is far from the truth when compared to real life. In a conversation with Forbes, Woody revealed that he had his first alcoholic drink was with his brother. “Oh yeah, that was not good. It was like Boone’s Farm,” the actor recalled. That said, such bars are often a staple location in western-set TV shows, and this can be interpreted as the writing team’s way of honoring that tradition, while also inventing a location that deeply serves the plot.
The Saddle Saloon was seemingly filmed in Cele Store, 18726 Cameron Road, Manor, Texas, a historic, 130-year-old country store and barbecue joint that closed in 2024. Locals from the city of Pflugerville took to Reddit upon sighting the production crew around Cele Store in late 2025, stating that a prop sign named the Saddle Saloon. This suggests that the filming crew most likely took over the store to make the best use of its old-timey, rustic aesthetic, among other things. has been used extensively as a filming location before, including for ‘A Perfect World’ and ‘Secondhand Lions.’
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