I first found Caitlin Shook by searching for Corpus Christi podcasts — she came up through the Bad Blonde, her automotive history show on 1440 KEYS. Then I met her at the Artisan doing standup. Then she started the Comedy Collective at the Annex. Eventually we sat down and hit record.
We did the episode at the Annex, her bar at 312 South Chaparral in downtown Corpus Christi — the one that's kind of hard to find on purpose, tucked behind the YMCA on a one-way street with no sign when they first opened. She called it an accidental speakeasy. Three years in, they've figured out the sign situation.
Caitlin co-owns the Annex with her mom and sister. She's been dreaming about having her own bar since she was 18, which started with busing tables at an Italian restaurant a block down the street at 16. The bar is painted Courtyard Green — she wants everyone to know that because picking a good green is genuinely difficult and they went through the whole process so you don't have to.
The automotive history thing goes back further. Her dad gave her a Porsche 912E to restore when she was 14 — not a flex, she clarified, because at the time nobody wanted a 912E. The point was to keep her busy. It worked. She spent most of her teenage years around old car guys and Vietnam vets in what is now the Annex building, which used to be an auto body shop. That car is still her baby.
She's been hosting the Bad Blonde on 1440 KEYS for six years — a live Saturday morning radio show about automotive history that she uploads as a podcast. She told the station manager upfront that she cursed like a sailor and didn't have a voice for radio. He told her she had a personality for it. She's cursed on air twice in six years.
We talked about the Wittington brothers — weed smugglers who bankrolled their Le Mans racing careers and bought a racetrack in Atlanta partly for its long straight, which was useful for night drops. We talked about the Ford Nucleon, Ford's 1950s nuclear-powered concept car that never got built because nobody had figured out what to do with nuclear waste yet, let alone in the back of a sedan. We talked about the early days of the automobile when any man with a sewing machine factory could decide to start making cars.
We also ended up deep in a birding conversation. Corpus Christi is apparently the birdiest city in America. She's in the Autobon Outdoor Club, keeps binoculars on her dining room table, and recently witnessed a cattle tyrant — a bird that has never been spotted north of Panama — show up near downtown. People flew in from Seattle and New York to see it.
The Annex hosts chicken shit bingo on the last Sunday of every month — a live chicken in a numbered coop, bingo cards, $240 to whoever's square she lands on. They also do baby goat happy hour, plant exchanges, book exchanges, and a petting zoo every anniversary. Caitlin studied experiential marketing in college and it shows.
Find her at the Annex, 312 South Chaparral, downtown Corpus Christi. The Bad Blonde podcast is available wherever you listen to podcasts.