by 6 people |
Austin rocks. Hands down. You can find great music any day of the week. From down and dirty blues to punk rock to rockabilly and just about anything else. This is a guide to the Austin I know. Cool hang outs, great music, good people.
Watering Holes
Where to go for live music and drinks.
These are the people who will take care of you.
- Beerland, Texas
- Small and charming, this is the bar that Guitar Wolf picked when they decided they wanted to play a dive bar in Texas. For good reason. The owners, Randall and Donya, are two of the best people you could ever hope to serve you beer.
Come out some Monday night for Rock and Roll Karaoke, featuring your host, me.
Every night of the week is packed with some of the best rock and roll bands Austin has to offer. You never know what you are going to get, but it is all most always great.
21 and up. - Emo's Austin
- Austin's premier punk rock club. Yeah, take that irony. It's a great club with two stages, inside and outside. They always get great touring and local acts. The scene there can get a little "punker than thou" but if you are there to have a good time, who cares. All ages, usually.
- Elysium
- Austin's Goth/Industrial bar. They have themes for pretty much every night of the week. The most popular is Sunday's 80s night. Tuesdays are lesbian night. Saturday features Haven and Goth, Industrial, Synthpop, and Eurodance. Wendsdays are a clash between Saturday and Sunday.
21 and up. - The Side Bar
- Ah, the Side Bar. Everyone's favorite little place on the side. This is where bar staff goes to drink on their nights off. Just off of Red River, on 7th Street. Great bar staff, large back patio for the smokers, great place to gather for drinks.
21 and up. - Room 710
- Room 710 tends towards harder music. Heavier rock and louder metal. They do not screw around.
21 and up. - Barflies
- The place for cheap drinks and heavy pours. A little further away from the downtown district, it is a good place to avoid the downtown crowds. Their slogan is "We are cheap so you don't have to be." Great staff, friendly and fast. Dangerously fast. Be careful on the stairs on the way in and the stairs on the way out to the patio. Especially after a few "Happy Meals".
21 and up. - The Rio Rita
- This is my bar away from home. Coffee and a full bar a short walk away from 6th and Red River. Friendly wait staff and a kitschy interior make this a great place to chill out and enjoy conversation and drinks.
There is always something going on there from Tuesday night olde timey folk music night with legends from the Texas punk rock scene to Wednesday night Milk and Cookies with David Williams. I also recommend checking out Sunday brunch. Always delicious.
Grub
Eat like a local
Man can't live on beer alone, trust me, I've tried.
- Casino El Camino
- Some of the best bar food in town. A dark punk rock dive. Great jukebox, no live music, fast and friendly bar staff. Good place to meet up and explore the rest of the down town district. Slow food service. Minimum 20 minutes even before the rush. Totally worth the wait. Try the Buffalo Burger and thank me later.
21 and up. - The Hot Dog King
- Best cart food in the downtown district. The Hot Dog King is a hell of a fella. You can find him in the parking lot on 8th and Red River. Yell "Hey Hot Dog King" as you walk by, and then come back for a Junkyard Dog loaded down with fresh grilled onions, sour kraut and spicy mustard. Great stuff.
- Star Seeds Cafe
- Don't let the fancy website and granola on the menu fool you. This is a great 24 hour diner/dive. Every touring band that comes through stops here, and so should you. If the ambiance doesn't convince you, the food will.
- The Jackalope
- If you find yourself further down 6th Street, and need a place of refuge and a late night bite, The Jackalope is the place. While the burgers are not *quite* as good as the burgers at Casino, you get them in half the time. The Chicken and Brie sandwich is worth wading through the 6th Street Frat crowd. It is also a big roller girl hangout so if you are looking for tough foxy ladies that is one of the places they congregate.
- Koriente
- If you are looking for food downtown and want something a little calmer, Koriente is the place to go. Quiet, serene, delicious food. I recommend the Bulgogi with Veggies, and my old lady always gets the Garden Handroll, it is one of her favorite meals in town. Great people and healthy food, you can't go wrong.
Guides
Where to find more information
Other Austin guides.
- The Austin Chronicle
- Austin's alternative weekly publication. Where to go for the grand view of what's going on in Austin on any given week.
- Austin, TX Showlist
- All the shows fit to print. A great guide to upcoming rock and roll shows in Austin. Good stuff. Not everything, just what the list owner likes. As it should be.
The Red River district
Misc
What else makes Austin rock.
Other events and places that you shouldn't miss.
- Texas Rollergirls
- Austin's Rock and Rollerderby. These girls put on one hell of a show. Full on rocket powered roller derby at it's finest. Come check out the longest running flat track roller derby in the country. Between rounds of hot girl on girl sports action check out some of Austin's hottest bands. And always remember, if you see a rollergirl flying off the track at you, LIFT YOUR BEER.
- South By Soutwest
- The best bait and switch Austin has to offer. We have an annual film, music and entertainment festival in the one month that the weather is tollerable in Austin. People come down from their freezing northern hell holes and it is beautiful out and every venue you go visit has live music pouring out of it.
Then they go home and tell the rest of their band that Austin is some kind of miracle oasis in the middle of Texas. So the whole band moves down 5 months later. In the middle of August. 100 degrees is a cool day in August. Half of the venues in town have gone back to not hosting live music and the rest of the bars cater mostly to local talent.
Sorry kid, you are screwed and now your band hates you.
SxSW is fun and Austin is great, don't get me wrong. But don't move here expecting everyday to be SxSW. For locals SxSW tends to be a bit of a bust anyways. You can see your hometown heroes normally, and the touring bands are overrun by jerks from California. - Lone Star Beer.
- The National Beer of Texas. It isn't great beer, but it's ours. All ours. The perfect beer for a hot Austin day.
As a matter of fact, I remember the day I realized that Austin was truly home. I was sitting at Jovita's on a Sunday morning. Just drinking a Lonestar and listening to the jukebox. My meal was coming but no one was in a particular hurry, especially not me. I just sipped on the Lonestar and realized that in that moment I was perfectly content.
21 and up.
Got something to say?
Where do you go to drink in Austin?
zuzanna wrote...
Hi, Nathan, nice job. Thanks for telling us about Austin. It seems it's much hotter there than here - in Canada...
Posted October 20, 2006
by NathanBlack
I am Nathan Black, the picture of a resident of Austin, Texas. I am a heavily tattooed skateboarding musician who works in the computer games industry... (more)
