Austin Texas RFI

caek--you also may want to check out Dog & Duck Pub (Guadalupe & 17th) or Crown & Anchor Pub (San Jacinto & 30th. Both are fairly close to your location.

i am now at my location! it is hot! my taxi driver was 1/8 cherokee!

and he did not like the english (1/8 dutch so he sides with the boer on the whole south africa thing -- no joke, that is his reason)

Dudes, going to Austin for work May 15th-17th. Not sure how much downtime I'm going to have, its a pretty quick trip for work stuff, but what should I make a priority to hit? Record shops? Food?

Go to Antoines Records, Friends of Sound off south congress, backspin off Airport, and End Of and Ear of south first, all great record stores.

Nice, thanks!

What kind of food do you like? Are you going to be mobile or mostly in one part of town?

If you don't mind spending a little money on food and want a really nice cocktail, Haddingtons off 6th st has the best burger I have had. Seriously it's worth the money.

I'm pretty open as far as food suggestions, but I'm feeling the craving for some good barbecue while I'm there. I'll be pretty stationary, the hotel I'm staying in downtown is where I'll be for work too.

If you take the number one bus which you can catch on congress, till 29th and guadalupe, Ruby's BBQ is right there on the corner. I think they have the best brisket in town. And best part is you can walk across the street and shop for records at Antone's afterwards.

i approve of ruby's.

^^^^^^^

you gotta try torchy's tacos

which, conveniently enough, has a location at 28th and Guadalupe.

that it do!!

o lord i miss me some torchys

fun fact about that neighbourhood: the first time i ever heard shine on you crazy diamond pt 1 was in spider house. felt like a very austin moment.

Torchys and Ruby's both good.

Lamberts for fancy time BBQ

Frank for awesome dogs and sausages.

When was this austin moment at Spider House? Many years ago I worked there before they had a full bar and table service. It was fun then. At night when we would close, there were always parties and late night drinking.

I remember when they called it Cafe Ro. It's still really nice, but has lost an undefinable weirdness it used to have.

If you're staying downtown you can hit a ton of various food trailers by either go south on Congress or east on Sixth Street. I'm currently addicted to the fish and chips from Bits and Druthers at the trailer food court just east of I-35 on Sixth Street. 24 Diner at Sixth and Lamar has delicious milk shakes and a locavore menu. I can provide french fry recs if you need them.

Seconded on 24 Dinner! The breakfast hash with chili is worth your money and helps a hangover.

Also Parkside on 6th has very nice oysters and cocktails. Casino El Camino has a very good buffalo/blue cheese burger.

Oh yeah, 24 Diner is open 24 hours a day as the name suggests. Also, since you're going to be Downtown, you can visit the Alamo Draft House Ritz location without having to worry about parking. Check their web site and if anything cool is being shown the weekend you'll be in town. It's really the best movie theater/bar/restaurant combo in the nation, especially if you go to one of their special events.

Awesome, thanks for all the good suggestions! Now I'm wishing I was going to be down there longer.

f. hazel, you really enjoy the downtown Alamo Draft House, esp the special events? I've always been disappointed in their presentation and approach to being a revival theatre. Everything is either ironic or humorous. I always wanted to see older movies that I can't easily watch without the gimmicks and ham-fisted humor. The Paramount comes comes to actually showing good movies I want to watch, but recently I fear they too are falling prey to the Alamo's gimmicky irony.

JacobSanders, i was in austin during the world cup last summer. good times.

The World Cup anywhere is good times, but Austin especially!

otm

f. hazel, you really enjoy the downtown Alamo Draft House, esp the special events?

I do! But I wouldn't really call them a revival theater... that's not really what they do. 80s revival maybe. Their strong points are cult movies and fun stuff... for example, they screened that version of the first Indiana Jones movie filmed by a couple of kids, and had them come and talk and do a Q&A after the screening. For straight screening of cinema classics, Paramount has a better program and presentation (but terribly uncomfortable seats). But they don't do sing-alongs/quote-alongs or cool events for first-run movies like the Alamo does. Like we saw the Scott Pilgrim premiere there, and they had the director thank us for coming and give everyone in the audience a high five. They love to surprise their audience, and I really dig that.

I guess it's more wishful thinking on my part that the Alamo would be a really awesome revival theatre that would show movies you can't easily rent or have been dying to see on the big screen. Probably because I watched Salo there many years ago. I kept checking their listings, and realized they only screened it because it's gross.

The thing I miss most about the Alamo is Weird Wednesday--I love what the Paramount does with the summer movie series, but they're apples/oranges in so many ways. Last summer during FantasticFest I saw Roger Corman's Sharktopus at the Paramount and the cognitive dissonance was jarring: "this movie belongs at the Alamo! Where's my pizza?"

I've been really loving the Dionysium lately... but I really get excited about having buttered popcorn and mozzarella sticks for dinner.

Dionysium! Do the guys really wear suits?

The guys on stage do, yes. And some small percentage of the audience.

you gotta try torchy's tacos

Did this, at the trailer on First during my walk down to End of an Ear (where i proceeded to spend tons of money). Best part was the Mexican Coke! Unfortunately I was super busy with work stuff so I only ended up getting to eat at Stubb's and Threadgill's, both of which I thought were really good. Heard a bit of Mogwai at Stubb's too, wished I would have been able to work out seeing the whole show. Also spent some time on 6th before I left. Overall, great city. Would visit again. A++++++

PS - you guys sure do love your tattoos down there, don't you? I couldn't believe how many tattoo joints there were!

so jeal u went to end of an ear

miss it so much

like, on record store day i called them and ordered some shit to send me via mail

I highly highly recommend End of an Ear, really a great store with super friendly employees. I could have easily spent three-four times as much as I did there, I was super impressed with the selection.

I heard they cleaned up Star Seeds Cafe which is a bummer. When I lived in Austin in the late 90s Star Seeds was a scene in the best possible way.

Also had to chuckle at the people I talked to's definition of "walkable". I was told by several people at our hotel that going from our hotel at Congress and the river to Stubb's and 6th wasn't walkable, nor was getting down to End of an Ear. I didn't think either were bad walks at all.

Texas!!!

Did you stay at the Radisson right there at the river? I'd totally do Stubbs from there, but EoE seems like a long ass way!

Did you make it to Antones? For reasonably price used records, it's my favorite store. EOE is nice too, but they also know what they have and charge it. But that's the case with most austin record stores. The guy who runs EOE is a nice guy though, I've know him since he first opened 33 degrees as a tiny shop.

Also had to chuckle at the people I talked to's definition of "walkable".

hahaha, come back in August or September and try walking from Town Lake to End of an Ear.... that's what, about a mile and a half? You'll walk into End of an Ear and keel over from heat exhaustion.

Haha, I'll admit that I was sweating my ass off when I was done, but it wasn't horrible. I totally would feel differently if it was 105 vs 80, yes. I stayed at the Embassy suites.

Did not have time to make it to Antone's, unfortunately.

Another great reason to love the Alamo Drafthouse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVz-fO7kxcQ&feature=player_embedded

MAGNITED STATES OF AMERICA

(^^^ have seriously typed that in like 30 places across the internet over the last couple of days)

Heading back down later today, but unfortunately its a quick trip for work. Hoping to get some time over at Waterloo, but not looking likely.

Austin, you have such a great city. Spent too much money at Waterloo the other night and also had a great dinner at Frank and met some great dudes that work there.