We get asked about this a lot, either by friends visiting or by people we encounter through our participation in the rideshare industry. So, for those curious, here’s a high, high-level guide to going out in Austin. It won’t apply to what everyone’s looking for. But it will apply to the vast majority of those visiting Austin.
Miscellaneous
Outside of downtown and the downtown-adjacent East Sixth (which we’ll get to), there are a number of neighborhood bars sprinkled throughout the city. There are also a few clubs. In downtown, there’s a small gay district on Fourth Street that overlaps with the Warehouse District. Up north of town, there’s this thing called The Domain which is a massive, massive mall, with parks and offices and apartments and a club next to an Irish bar where you can sit and people-watch as folks enter the club, which is something I’ve done and enjoyed. This blurb is non-exhaustive, just as this list is non-exhaustive, but to avoid giving the impression there are only four places to go out in Austin, here we are.
Now. The four places to go out in Austin:
Dirty Sixth
Sixth street runs from the East 7th HEB to Mopac, the highway that either forms the western edge of downtown or narrowly doesn’t form the western edge of downtown, depending on whether you use Mopac or Lamar as downtown’s western border. On the east half of downtown (so the center of Sixth Street), from Congress Avenue to the interstate (more narrowly, from Brazos to Red River or Sabine, but Dirty Sixth bleeds out a few blocks in all directions when it’s humming), it is Dirty Sixth.
The best way to describe Dirty Sixth is that it is one tenth of Bourbon Street. It’s Bourbon Street, but it’s wider, it’s vaguely western themed, open-container is not allowed, there’s no nudity, and instead of porches there are rooftops. Dirty Sixth is riotous at night, not in a literal riot sense (though that has happened) but in the sense that it is packed with people (they close down the street to cars from Red River to Brazos), those people are often hammered, there used to be cops on horseback and I’m assuming there still are but it has been a while since I’ve been to Dirty Sixth, and…yeah, that’s about it. Sea of people. Sea of drunk people. Words used to describe Dirty Sixth are “ratchet,” “lit,” “shitshow,” “panic-attack-inducing,” “hilarious,” and a whole lot more but those probably cover it well enough. One tenth of Bourbon Street is still a lot. Dirty Sixth is a lot.
Dirty Sixth has the most diverse crowd, and it draws the most tourists. Costs are low because the bars are in fierce competition to get people in the door, so it also draws a lot of undergrads from UT. During the day, it’s more casual, you can eat, and the live music spots become more prominent.
Rainey Street
Rainey Street is in the southeast corner of downtown, still sprouting up high-rise luxury condos as it surges into existence after just being a pocket of houses as recently as a couple decades ago. Rainey might be the most unique area to go out in Austin, consisting of bars that are mostly in houses or made to look like they’re in houses. There’s a mix of environments here, from the laid-back to the club-like, and it’s possible to eat a meal at the food trucks or at a few of the bars.
The crowd here ranges from young professionals to well-off middle-aged folks to UT students who’ve gotten sick of Dirty Sixth. Also a big tourist spot, but doesn’t feel as “touristy” as Dirty Sixth because it’s not entirely overwhelming yet. It’s getting there, though. They’ve started closing it off more and more at night.
During the day, Rainey’s wonderful. If I were ranking places in Austin to drink, I would put Daytime Rainey just behind Daytime East Sixth, which is just behind Nighttime East Sixth (we’ll get to East Sixth next). Laid back, lots of good outdoor areas, easy to go for a walk among the trees either before, after, or during, since it’s right on the river.
East Sixth
East of the interstate, from Shangri-La at the corner of Medina to La Holly at the corner of Pedernales, you get East Sixth. It’s growing fast. Gentrifying. But some of the bars have been there for a long time, or at least what passes in Austin as a long time, and there are some gems. Cocktail bars, dives, a brewery, a honkytonk if you expand East Sixth to include The White Horse even though it’s a block away. Not all that original to Austin—I’d imagine a lot of cities Austin’s size have a place where you can go to a good mix of bars with a good mix of people—but original enough that it’s a way to get to know Austin, just like similar areas in other cities are ways to get to know those other cities.
The crowd on East Sixth isn’t “eclectic” by definition in the same way the Dirty Sixth crowd is (also, I should mention here that sometimes people call Dirty Sixth by the name East Sixth, which I think used to be the thing before the new East Sixth sprouted up as much as it has—so, if you need to clarify, you can say East East Sixth, but let’s move on), but it’s “eclectic” in the same way we normally use that word, which is to say this is the most hipster-y area of the four. You get more middle-aged folks, or young people who don’t normally wear collared shirts and pantsuits to work, or young people who do wear collared shirts and pantsuits to work but wish they didn’t have to.
You can spend whole days on East Sixth (easy to eat at any time), and you should do that, because East Sixth is the best. Day or night. The absolute best. There’s a little bit of a magic to it, because it’s quiet for stretches between the bars. The most romantic one of these four. Feels like something wonderful’s going to happen.
West Sixth
West Sixth, which ranges technically from Congress to either Mopac or Lamar but really is the strip from San Antonio to West, is the least original spot of the four. It’s the biggest for yuppies and the Greek crowd from UT. This isn’t a good or a bad thing, and there are some cool, original, old places over there, but it’s the situation. If you’re going to go, I’d recommend going for a sporting event—specifically a college football Saturday (better when UT’s playing, but UT doesn’t have to be playing). That’s when it’s at its best.
West of West Sixth, in the portion past Lamar, there are fun little neighborhood bars and restaurants—basically the non-formerly-segregated part of Austin’s counterpoint to East Sixth, which is to say they’re either whiter or not as white and either not as gritty or not as Instagram-y, which is to then say that they’re in the middle ground East Sixth lacks because East Sixth has a lot of specific places that were created to not occupy any middle ground. But this area is questionably included in the definition of West Sixth.
Easy enough to eat on West Sixth. Not as easy as East Sixth. Comparable to Rainey.
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Again, this isn’t an exhaustive summary. But if you’re here for a weekend and you’re looking to “go out,” this is what you’re looking at.
