Me and the missus are moving out to Austin shortly, as the thread title would imply. Can any Austin Dopers let me in on cool places and things to do/see/drink at?
As an addendum, do you know of a good team trivia night? We’ve been going to one here and we’re going to miss it when we move.
Austin is a great casual foodie town. You can get just about anything wrapped in a taco shell. We have the corporate headquarters for Whole Foods downtown. We also have Central Market. which is a more mainstream version of Whole Foods.
Lots of places have great live music. Pick up an Austin Chronicle when you get here. It’s a free, local newspaper found in many bars/restaurants that will have all the music listings and other events around town.
Sixth Street is where all the college bars are. Fourth and Colorado is where the grown up bars are. South Congress is where the hipster bars are.
We are also home to The Alamo Drafthouse, a great set of movie theaters that serve food.
Austin embraces the unusal. Many people have tattoos/piercings. Certain homeless people have achieved celebrity status.
The town is pretty laid back. You can go anywhere in jeans and a t-shirt.
It’s politically liberal. Come election time, it’s typical to see a little dot of blue for Travis County in the otherwise red map of Texas.
Before the kids I did trivia at an Irish bar on Sixth… PJ Irishname… Riley’s perhaps? Pretty good. Never won there but finished in the top 3 most weeks. Mother Egan’s supposedly has a good one, I’ve heard.
Austin traffic sucks and the parking situ is not good downtown. So unless you live there or nearby, I wager you will prefer to find activities in your neck of the woods. I’m just discovering the cool events in Round Rock and Pflugerville which are in my neighborhood and eschewing the Austin stuff cos it’s such a hassle getting down there.
I work at UT and generally don’t want to return once I leave, but there’s always something happening on campus… Good museums, lectures, etc.
Heh. Like Unc said, it’s a little different now. And they spell it “Hippie,” oddly enough.
Mount Bonnell is a good visit. Venturing out to the various BBQ meccas - Driftwood, Lockhart, Elgin, Luling - is fun and not at all hipster-esque. Are you a hipster? If so, keep your skinny jeans and cigs on South Congress (oh, excuse me, SoCo).
I love me some BBQ and can’t fit in skinny jeans. I am a big music buff, though.
I’m not sure where we’re going to live exactly; my SO’s work is going to be SW of downtown but we’re still not sure how close to downtown we can afford to live. Recommendations there would also be appreciated.
If you like fitnessy stuff, climbing Enchanted Rock is fun: it’s a bit of a drive and on the way to Fredericksburg, but you get an amazing view of the Hill Country.
Assuming it hasn’t changed much, Star Seeds Cafe has the best omelettes in existence.
Geeks Who Drink is a new local bar trivia group with a website. I seem to remember that one of my friends is one of the founders, but I forget who.
The best Mexican food I’ve had in town is at Morelia’s, up in Round Rock on the road to the Dell Diamond (the local minor-league baseball team’s home field). Attentive staff, unreasonably good food.
For barbecue: there’s a trailer on about 45th street and I-35 that has, for my money, hands down the best barbecue I’ve ever tasted. I forget the name.
I ‘grew up’ in Austin through the 80’s-90’s (or so) and those were the great(er) years (imho). Austin definitely has its own ‘attitude’ and many folks that appear to be ‘scum’ may just happen to be of some importance locally. I remember good ol’ Max getting into politics during his times of selling flowers at Congress/Oltorf, and I spent many an hour chatting/smoking with him during my cruiser-bicycle rides I did with the bike-crowd. (oh yeah, Austin’s bike/hike paths are outstanding!). Austin outgrew itself (imho) and even though the city carries the same ‘cool’ attitude, there is the issue of crowds and other stuff that population brings. Could be worse, though.
I recommend the Botanical Gardens at Zilker, a round of frisbee-golf if so inclined, followed by a few laps of the pool at Barton Springs (if open). That area gives a great feel of Austin, and there’s countless music/food within walking/biking (or driving, of course) distance of that part of town.
You might also enjoy seeing the bats at Congress Ave bridge. They form huge funnels of black as they exit out at twilight. Do not stand under the bridge when they are exiting as you will get pissed upon, trust me (!).
Have fun there, and take advantage of all the good swimming holes, too. Sooooo much to do there now that I think about it more…
Blues bars are hard to come by now. The Austin musical scene has changed; there’s still the artists pumping out traditional Austin-style folk/country/rock hybrid tunes, but when I was living there last year, the hipster/indie scene was dominant. The blues bars on 6th Street? Joe’s Generic and many other legendary venues are gone, and the crowd after 10:00 PM is comprised of mostly college students, the bro/douchebag element, and tourists. The Warehouse District has more than its fair share of ultra lounges.
That being said, live music is everywhere; supermarkets, coffeehouses, and so on, and the quality is excellent.
Austin mostly developed after WWII, and there’s fewer dense, pedestrian oriented neighborhoods than what you might find in similarly sized cities elsewhere. One district that is very popular among hipsters, North Loop, has the feel of a collection of run-down strip plazas. The hipster strip plaza is a phenomenon I’ve only seen in Austin. If you’re more than a few miles beyond downtown, the vibe is less “weird” and more like “a kinder, gentler version of suburban Dallas.”
Austin is a very dog-friendly city, with plenty of excellent dog parks. People don’t hesitate to bring their dogs into stores.
Lots of geographic divides. South Austin is perceived to be the last bastion of the “real Austin”, while north of the river is seen as a yuppieland. North of the river, there’s the I-35 divide; east is perceived as mostly Hispanic, west is white, except the area around Rundberg Lane. Further to the north, the area east of I-35 is seen as blue collar-leaning middle-class (Pflugerville, Hutto, east side of Round Rock), west as more affluent and professional (west side of Round Rock, Cedar Park, far northwest Austin). Georgetown caps the northern end of the long I-35 corridor; it’s leafy, quaint, and filled with retirees. There’s not the same high percentage of what I call “King of the Hill” neighborhoods as what one might find in suburban Fort Worth or Houston.