FRIDAY LATE NIGHT

If you’ve wondered why it’s taken this long to get to the bar districts in Austin, relax. It’s called a tease. I know you want to hear about West and Dirty and Rainey etc but I had to squeeze those pageviews out of you. Good news is, we’re here now. 

Here’s a crash course in the Austin bar districts: 

 West 6th: It’s Coors Banquet and Vodka Sodas. A Big 10 school personified. Ideal mix of clubby-adjacent, big outdoor spaces, good vibes, and talent. Ideal if the hot head of your group wants to get in a shoving match over pop-a-shot or Big Buck Hunter. Generally much less aggressive than Dirty 6th and Rainey, West 6th is home to bars that you’ll feel at home at whether you’re 22 or 36.  Really a little something for everyone. It’s also a place you can take as deep as you want and still have fun. I’ve seen worse rotations than Bufords 8-9, Rustic Tap from 9-10, Beez Kneez from 10-11, Dirty Bills 11-midnight (this will get packed, it will get dicey, and you will have an absolute blast), and Cats Pajamas from 12-??? 

 Other Spots: Parlor, Dogwood, Star Bar

 Dirty 6th: It’s Keystone and tequila shots. You’re looking at organized debauchery and most likely fake IDs. “I’ve been told Bourbon Street but worse” is a solid comparison. You probably want to stay away from this spot unless you’re sub 24ish or the person who enjoys spending your nights being elbowed constantly by people screaming an array of 2000s Top 40 hits. Someone WILL get lost and someone WILL be propositioned to purchase fake weed. However, if you’re looking for a story for the morning, it’s not a bad spot to have a few roofdeck pops. There’s also a snake. 

Spots: They’re all the same. No preference. Stumble to them all. End at Barbarella. 

 East 6th: It’s hazy-dry hopped-imperial IPAs and house made fernet. Bars are routinely carved out of old warehouses or garages and every drink has a story behind it that a guy made up. You’d think polished concrete is a flooring requirement and soccer the national sport. That being said, with the “up-and-coming” tag, you get a unique atmosphere pretty much anywhere you land. If your ideal night consists of drinking at picnic tables and listening to giant jenga sets fall over, while talking to down-to-earth account executives or dickhead software founders, East 6th is a top notch plan. 

Spots: Revelry, Whisler’s, White Horse, Lefty’s, Hotel Vegas, Nickel City, The Liberty, Shangri La 

 Rainey Street: The newest of the bar districts, Rainey 10 years ago was a place you’d see on CSI or Drugs, Inc. Today, it’s still home to an array of schedule 1 narcotics, but mostly just the ones that make your buddy stumble quickly through his short-lived minor league baseball career. Like Jacksonville routinely took BP off his 87 soft serve but he spent the summer with Trenton so he *technically* got a look in a Yankees Grapefruit League game. Every bar is an old bungalow with a substantial patio scene and a vibe that you genuinely can’t really find anywhere else. As talented of a street there is in Austin. You’re probably going to bump into someone that was on the Bachelor for 3 episodes but still has the rose emoji in their bio.

Unfortunately for the past Austin visitors, Bungalow and Container Bar are no longer. Demolished to put up one of these.  That’s ok, there’s plenty left. 

Spots: Icenhauer’s, Placeholder, Lustre Pearl, UnBar, Bangers (live music and a more relaxed vibe), and you can stop reading this - it’s another one where every bar you stumble into will be similar in how fun it is. 

Do what you will with the breakdown. They all have bars adjacent to each other for hundreds of yards and give you options, whether you’re looking to sit at a patio or dance awkwardly to problematic R Kelly songs. Just park the sprinter van on the outskirts of one of these areas and bar hop there for the night. You can always hit another on Saturday. 

Eventually the group is a collective 60 Deep-Eddy-Lemons in and you get tired of striking out with the bachelorette party in the pink cowboy hats. Here’s the point of the night where you decide to do one of a few things...

 ++: A few of these spots have an AC room. It’s groundbreaking in a locale that regularly stays in the high 80s well past 10pm in the summer.