Under amber lighting and the warm melodies of the Jazz Age, a new jazz bar off Fourth Street takes guests into an intimate space with Rat Pack vibes and callbacks to the swinging clubs of early 20th-century America.
Nica, opened on Sept. 18, adds another full-time jazz club to Austin’s sprawling list of live music venues. Brought to life by the people behind the Elephant Room and Parker Jazz Club, the new bar offers a casual listening experience and an atmosphere designed to emulate the speakeasies of jazz’s golden age.
“We wanted all of the senses to be catered to,” Nica’s operating director Aaron Frescas said.
Nica features live jazz five nights a week alongside a menu of prohibition-era style cocktails. Kris Kimura, who teamed up with Frescas to put together Nica just eight years after opening Parker Jazz Club, said he hopes to recapture a time when jazz ruled American popular music.
“Nica is more of what a jazz club might have been in the ‘30s or ‘40s,” Kimura said.
Kimura said he wanted a vintage jazz bar in the basement down the street from Parker for years before an eviction left him an opening in early 2025. After bringing on Frescas in the spring, the pair spent the next several months bringing Nica to life.
“It’s like you step through a portal almost into a different time,” Frescas said.
Nica joins a trio of dedicated jazz bars in Austin. Guests choose Monks Jazz Club and Parker Jazz Club for focused listening, while the Elephant Room attracts people looking for laid-back dive bar energy. Kimura said Nica introduces a middle ground.
“I don’t want anyone to ever feel obligated to listen at Nica,” Kimura said. “I want people to come in and I want people to enjoy the music. If they want to listen, fantastic.”
Kimura cut his teeth in Austin playing saxophone at the Elephant Room’s legendary Monday night jam sessions in the late 1990s. Now, a self-proclaimed “elder statesman,” he marvels at the response to his new bar.
“I am tragically unhip,” Kimura said. “I’ve never been a part of the ‘what is cool now’ scene. The people that are coming into Nica –– that’s what they are.”
Kimura plans to bring in local student groups to perform at Nica every week in addition to his rotation of professional musicians. On Thursday, he invited a group from Texas State.
“It doesn’t matter who’s playing as long as the music is good,” Kimura said.
Still, Kimura performs a few nights a week with his quartet, which he started in 1997. Pianist Ryan Davis said Nica’s atmosphere sets it apart from Austin’s other jazz bars.
“You can take some risks in a lighter setting like this,” Davis said.
Nica gets its name from Pannonica Rothschild, whose patronage in the ‘40s supported jazz vanguards like Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker. The bar’s design references her with several easter eggs.
“You’ve got the guys who want to create new tradition and you’ve got the guys that pay homage to the old traditions,” Kimura said. “I’m of the latter. I want to pay homage to all of my heroes.”
