Because August 32 doesn't exist

More than 20 celebrations for unofficial Houston holiday 713 Day

July 13 isn’t officially a holiday in Houston, but lots of people treat it like one. After all, 713 is Houston’s oldest area code, which means the number will always be part of the city’s identity.

Also, we can’t celebrate anything on February 81 or August 32, because they don’t exist.

As has become a tradition, organizations and businesses all over the city are planning special events for Saturday. We’ve rounded up all the best food pop-ups, car shows, markets, concerts, and more.

Go out and enjoy. After this week, we could all use some fun.

Community Celebrations

Children’s Museum Houston invites you to chill out on 713 Day with frosty melodies, cool sculptures and breathtaking science. Also, dance and sing-along with your favorite Frozen-inspired characters and friends in a wonderful show of music. 9 am.

Over at 8th Wonder Brewery enjoy live music from Donny Houston, Matt Mejia, and Shame On Me, a vendor market curated by Good Market HTX, outdoor activities, cannabis beverages, beer, and more. It’s free and open to the public. Noon.

Fonde Community Center and the Houston Rockets are teaming up for a 713 Day of Basketball. There will be a youth basketball clinic, a dunk contest, a dance fitness class, and appearances by Trae tha Truth, Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes and others. 10 am.

Harrisburg Art Museum will be the place for Houston Culture Fest’s 713 Day Fest. There will be a live performance from Lil O, a puff and paint sesh, live graffiti art, a slab meet/contest, and a bunch of vendors. 5 pm.

Market Square Park will have a special edition of the We Heart HOU Music Series. The event will feature more than 20 local vendors and live performances by Aire Fresco and EZ Band. 5:30 pm.

Starseed Hostel will have a 713 Day Fest, hosted by Off Record Media and Coexistence Collective. Slum City Art Department, Goosechase, The Chevy Bois, Junkyard Cat, and The Kiddos are scheduled to perform. 5 pm.

Restaurants & Bars

Cadillac Bar will keep things figuratively and literally flowing throughout the day. They will have an extended, all-day happy hour, hitting you with cervezas, margaritas and over 70 tequilas. 11 am.

Cafe Leonelli invites fellow Houstonians to celebrate their city with its festive 713 Day cocktail, the Comet Crush. Priced at $7.13, the Comet Crush is the perfect tribute to Houston’s unofficial holiday. 5-9 pm.

Craft Pita is bringing back their “Only in H-Town” summer cookout event to showcase the combination of cultures and flavors one can only experience in Houston. Created in collaboration with guest chef Gabe Medina (formerly of Click Virtual Food Hall), the menu will celebrate Lebanese, Filipino, Palestinian, and Peruvian cultures. 11 am.

Over at Diversion Cocktails, Space City area-residents are invited to sip on a $18 Candy Paint cocktail with rum, candy syrup, citrus, soda and cinnamon. It’s a drink for the senses and a must-try. Reservations are strongly encouraged through Tock. 5 pm.

If you’re near either the downtown or Galleria Grotto restaurant, you can stop in and get their famous peach bellini for $7.13. (Call the Galveston location and see if they’ll also have this.) 11:30 am (noon Galleria).

FAO HTX will get its party on with a 713 Day bash. There will be door prizes, a Houston-inspired scavenger hunt, Houston trivia, photo opps and $7.13 H-Town margaritas. The Do713 crew will also host a countdown, a celebratory toast and confetti cannon blasts at 7:13 p.m. RSVP here. 6 pm.

J-Bar-M Barbecue will host Cadillacs and Coffee, a free-to-attend car show featuring unique stock and modified classic Cadillacs. Barbecue connoisseurs can enjoy J-Bar-M’s “El-Dog Sando” with a side of french fries for $20. 1 pm.

King Ranch Texas Kitchen will have an all-day, extended happy hour, with speciality cocktails for $7.13. You can get such delicious drinks as the spiked cucumber fresco, the Texas peach tea and the grilled pineapple margarita. 11 am.

Marmo will have $7.13 spritzes, which will be available all day long. Indulge in a classic aperol spritzor a mesmerizing purple spritzmade with Empress gin for a festive and refreshing treat. 11 am.

Pizaro’s Pizza is offering a deal for customers who show their H-Town pride. Customers sporting a Houston-themed outfit or shirt on July 13 are invited to purchase an 8-inch personal margherita pizza for $7.13. 11 am.

Nashville hot chicken restaurant Red Chickz is giving diners a free chicken sandwich with the purchase of any combo.

Tacodeli will be offering $5 margaritas and $2.13 beersto mark the occasion. Combine the specials for a total of $7.13to show some Houston pride. Specials will be available at both the Washington Avenue and Post Oak Plaza locations. 8 am.

The Tipsy Sloth will celebrate its grand opening with a 713 Day Market. DJ Areal and Whitney Screwston will provide the grooves, while Baked Potato Mannn will serve up the food. There will also be an H-Town cocktail menu. 7:13 pm.

Treebeards in Bunker Hill will be celebrating 713 Day with $7.13 summer cocktails all day. Cocktails include the watermelon spritz, the grapefruit chilton and the Greta Garbo (we’re assuming that one is best consumed alone). 11 am.

WILD Concepts invites Houstonians to salute the city’s oldest area code with both of its locations in Montrose and The Heights. They’re offering $7.13 specials all-day on their popular cocktails Swangin’ and Bangin’ and Still Sippin’. 8 am (10 am Montrose).

Over in Spring Branch, Wild Oats is serving $1.50 oysters (half dozen minimum), $4 guacamole, $7.13 queso, $7.13 margaritas, and $3 select beers.

Courtesy of 8th Wonder

8th Wonder is celebrating with concerts, a market, drinks, and more.

holidays festivals 713 day

Movie Review

New Pixar film Elio is fun but falls short of Disney's top tier

Photo courtesy of Pixar

Elio (Yonas Kibreab) and Glordon (Remy Edgerly) in Elio.

Pixar has done a ton of different things in the 28 feature films they’ve released over the past 30 years, but the one they’d never done is deal with aliens (and, no, the alien toys in Toy Story don’t count). Now they’re going where many storytellers have gone before, but in their own unique way, in the new film Elio.

Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) is a space fanatic who has recently lost both of his parents in an unnamed event. His Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) is now his guardian, and because she happens to be a member of the U.S. Space Force, Elio finds himself tantalizingly close to communications from space. With a desire to be abducted by aliens for both curiosity and sentimental reasons, Elio sends a message into space, hoping for some kind of response.

He gets that and more when a ship full of multiple types of beings takes him into space, believing him to be a leader instead of a child. An encounter with a hostile force led by Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett) gives Elio both a new friend, Grigon’s son Glordon (Remy Edgerly), and responsibility for maintaining peace during an unexpected galactic crisis.

Pixar has not typically followed the route of many Disney movies of giving their child protagonist the trauma of dead parents, and doing so here is the first of a few minor missteps. Having Olga be his mom instead of his aunt would have altered their dynamic, but only slightly. While Elio is shown to miss his parents, his major focus is on making contact with aliens. Since the film only briefly deals with his grief, it would have been better served by excising it altogether.

For the most part, the film is goofy, with Elio’s enthusiasm for aliens matched by the oddness of the creatures he meets in space. The filmmakers - there are three credited directors and three credited writers - seem to have taken inspiration from sea creatures and Pixar’s own history, as the main bad guy emulates Mike and Sully’s boss from Monsters, Inc. Almost every character in the film is heightened to a degree that makes for funny situations, but not as much sentimentality as other Pixar offerings.

Surprisingly, especially since the film ends with a voiceover from notable astronomer Carl Sagan, the filmmakers play fast and loose with real-life science. Elio’s journeys to and from the alien spaceship are treated as close-to-instantaneous trips, even involving portals directly to Earth. The idea of the story doesn’t allow them to delve into things like relativistic time dilation, but there still could have been other scientific references to keep the story aboveboard.

There are very few stars to be found among the film’s voice cast other than Saldaña and Garrett, who are each fine if unmemorable. Kibreab and Edgerly are given many more scenes than anyone else, and they each do a great job of bringing out both the joy and naivete of their characters. Some lesser-known actors like Jameela Jamil, Atsuko Okatsuka, and Brendan Hunt show up in minor roles, but they don’t stand out in any way.

The story and characters in Elio are sweet and fun, but the film as a whole falls well short of the top tier Pixar movies. The filmmakers could have gone many different directions with a story about a boy who wants to be abducted by aliens, and the way they chose ended up being innocuous and less than compelling.

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Elio opens in theaters on June 20.

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