The search box learned some new tricks. Here's everything it understands now.

We shipped two big things this month: Texas metro areas and a live directory of newly issued liquor licenses. Here's how to use them — and a refresher on everything else you can type into that green box.

Metros are here

Texas arguments don't stop at city limits, so the site doesn't anymore either. Every official Census metro and micropolitan area — all 67 of them — now has its own page, built from the same county-level tax data as everything else.

Try typing:

• metro houston — the 10-county Houston metro, one number
• dfw or the metroplex — yes, it knows the nicknames
• metro austin vs metro san antonio — settle it at metro scale
• metro houston vs dfw 2025 vs 2026 — years work here too

Every metro page shows the ⓘ next to the name — tap it to see exactly which counties are included (per the official Census delineation), each one clickable. And the metro leaderboard ranks all 67 areas by latest-month sales.

One spoiler from the data: Houston beats Dallas city-vs-city. But at metro scale, Metro Dallas out-drinks Metro Houston by more than $70 million a month. Each side of I-45 gets to win one.

New liquor licenses, updated daily

Every liquor license TABC issues in Texas now shows up in our new-licenses directory — trade name, license type, owner entity, address, and the real issue date, refreshed automatically every day.

• Filter by license type with one tap (MB = Mixed Beverage, the full-bar permit — tap License type for the full decoder)
• Type a city or ZIP into the filter box — "hou" gets you Houston
• Each month freezes into its own archive page when it ends
• When a new venue files its first sales numbers, its entry grows a link: "Now reporting sales — view this venue →" — watch a brand-new bar graduate into the rankings

The comparison engine speaks Texan

You can compare almost anything to almost anything, and phrase it however you'd say it out loud:

• houston vs dallas · 77002 vs 78701 · harris county vs dallas county
• stubbs and gristmill new braunfels — "and" works
• galveston compared to corpus christi — so does "compared to," "versus," "against," and "compare X to Y"
• Add years anywhere: waco vs lubbock 2024 2025, 2025 waco vs lubbock, 77002 feb 2025 vs feb 2026

Every comparison chart's legend is clickable, every result links deeper, and every page you land on shows numbers that reconcile to the dollar with every other page — that part's not new, it's just the rule.

The rest of the toolbox, in one place

• Any venue: stubbs austin — misspellings usually work (gaidos)
• Any address: 1205 Richmond Ave, Houston
• Any block: 300 block of Main Street in Houston
• Any permit number: MB649300
• Any month: sales for Toyota Center in Houston, October 2022
• Top lists: top bars in Austin, March 2024

If you find something the box doesn't understand that a reasonable Texan would type — tell us. Half the features above started as somebody's failed search.

Sales figures are gross mixed-beverage receipts reported to the Texas Comptroller, as filed as of August 19, 2026. License data from TABC's public dataset, refreshed daily. Metro definitions per the July 2023 U.S. Census Bureau delineations. Free, no login — asktexasbarsales.com.