Pull into the gravel lot at 336 E. Cedar Creek Parkway in Seven Points expecting cornhole boards and a biergarten, and you'll be a season behind. The Giant Jenga is gone. So is the taproom quiet that used to define a Wednesday night there. What greets you now is a dance floor, a 22-seat bar pouring Hurricanes, and a hostess seating you for shrimp étouffée. If you haven't driven past since spring, the building changed its personality again without asking your permission.
That's not new for this particular acre of Cedar Creek Lake. It's the third identity this address has worn since the 1970s, and each time it's swapped, something about what the lake actually wanted at night changed with it.
One Building, Three Businesses Since the Seventies
Before it was anything else, the building at 336 E. Cedar Creek Parkway was a honky-tonk, one of a handful that gave Seven Points its reputation as an East Texas dance-hall town in the 1970s and early 1980s. That reputation is why, in 1983, a film crew showed up to shoot the comeback-concert scene in "Tender Mercies," the Robert Duvall picture that won him the Best Actor Oscar and won Horton Foote the screenplay award. The producers picked the club's cozy upstairs saloon over a larger dance hall down the road, and the scene where Duvall's character returns to the stage was filmed right there.
Jim Elliott didn't know any of that when he opened Cedar Creek Brewery in 2012. The connection surfaced after the brewery moved into the historic building in 2015, and Elliott started sharing it with customers through a small display near the entrance. "This building has some definite history," he said. "It's really cool." Most people don't know the movie was shot inside, he's said, but more than one longtime local has told him a truck visible in the film's background was theirs.
The brewery ran for roughly a decade, winning a gold medal at the 2013 Great American Beer Festival for a seasonal Belgian Dubbel and building a following for its family-friendly taproom. Then it closed, and the building sat as an open question again.
Why the New Owners Bet on the Original Idea
Greg and Caroline Figueroa answered that question by going backward on purpose. The couple, who already run Fig's Steakhouse and Fig's Backyard in Tool, bought the property and reopened it in October 2025 as Cedar Creek Plowboys Club, restoring the honky-tonk identity the brewery had replaced.
"We're honored to bring back a place that means so much to this community," Greg Figueroa said around the reopening. "Plowboys will once again be a place to share good food, enjoy live music and make lasting memories." Caroline added the part that gets at why they didn't just open another brewery or another steakhouse: "As many here, we were sad to see the brewery close, but we believe that new beginnings with a nod to the past can help the community look forward, dancing toward a brighter future."
The grand reopening landed on October 24, 2025. What opened that night was noticeably bigger than what closed.
Then and Now, Side by Side
| Cedar Creek Brewery (2012–2025) | Plowboys Club (Oct. 2025–present) | |
|---|---|---|
| Main draw | Craft beer taproom, yard games | Live-music stage, dance floor |
| Seating | Taproom plus outdoor biergarten | 90 indoor seats, 128 patio seats |
| Bar | Beer-focused | 22-seat bar, 16 taps, signature Hurricanes |
| Weekend hours | Family daytime hours | Bar service pushed to midnight |
| What's next | No further expansion | A near one-acre outdoor stage targeted to open by March 1, 2026, built for crowds around 1,200 |
The menu is Louisiana-inspired, a direct nod to the Figueroas' New Orleans roots, and the dance floor sits under the same tin roof that survived every version of the building. The original redwood rafters, taken down when the second story was removed, were repurposed as wall paneling rather than thrown out, so pieces of the honky-tonk's first life are still visible even now.
The Calendar Locals Are Actually Checking
A honky-tonk lives or dies on its booking calendar, and Plowboys has kept its full since the reopening. The Wilder Blue headlined in March 2026, with Tanner Sparks opening. Travis Bolt, an East Texas country-rock songwriter known for a gritty voice and personal writing, played the club in July 2026. That's not a one-and-done grand opening lineup. It's a venue booking touring acts on a rolling basis, which is a different bet than a taproom running trivia night.
The outdoor stage the Figueroas described when they bought the property, close to an acre of open-air space designed for headline acts and tribute bands, was targeted to open by March 2026. Whether a given night's show happens on that new stage or inside the original dance floor, the calendar itself has stayed busy enough that regulars now check it the way they used to check the brewery's tap list.
The Same Family Runs More of the Lake's Nights Than You'd Guess
If Plowboys feels like it arrived with more confidence than a typical reopening, part of the reason is that the Figueroas weren't testing an idea on the lake for the first time. Fig's Steakhouse in Tool already runs a fine-dining room under their name, and Fig's Backyard, also in Tool, built its own crowd around barbecue, live music, and a golf simulator that turned it into a hangout as much as a restaurant. Plowboys is the third leg of that same table, not a standalone gamble.
It also isn't the only thing pulling the lake's after-dark crowd toward music and dancing this year. Vernon's Lakeside, just across the bridge from the Gun Barrel City Airpark, still packs in a Friday-night burger crowd. The Tiki Hut at Lone Star Marina in Tool remains one of the only true boat-up restaurants on the lake, open-air and reachable straight from the water. Dirk's Dockside Bar & Grill, a few minutes from Plowboys in Seven Points, keeps its own waterfront regulars. None of that is new information to anyone who lives here. What's new is that the honky-tonk end of that spectrum, the dance-floor-and-live-band end, now has a bigger, better-funded anchor than it's had in a decade.
What the Address Keeps Learning
As of October 2025, Henderson County's permanent population ran around 82,000, but that number was estimated to swell by roughly 45,000 on a typical weekend as second-home owners and visitors arrived, pushing the lake's actual weekend population closer to 127,000. That swing is the real audience this building has been trying to read since the 1970s. A honky-tonk made sense when Seven Points was building its reputation as a dance-hall town. A quiet family brewery made sense for a decade when the lake's growth leaned toward daytime recreation and casual dining. Whether the honky-tonk bet is the right read for this decade of weekend crowds is something the calendar will answer over the next year, one touring act at a time.
For now, the building has decided again. If you're driving past 336 E. Cedar Creek Parkway expecting the brewery's biergarten, adjust your plans. The lot's still gravel. The tin roof's still original. Everything happening under it just changed its mind.
If you're already living the Cedar Creek Lake rhythm and want more of what's actually opening, closing, and changing around Gun Barrel City, The Cole Home Team keeps close tabs on the lake because we live on it too. Reach out anytime you want a local read on the area, or if a move around the lake is ever on your radar, we're happy to talk through what your home is worth in today's market.
