XL Cover Story: Greater Austin Bar Guide

Moira's favorites

The Bar Girl's top Greater Austin dives

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

POODLE DOG LOUNGE
6507 Burnet Road, 465-9468
The Poodle Dog is my favorite dive. Not just because it's the perfect place to play pool on a Tuesday afternoon or because staff and patrons say hello. But because the Poodle Dog is essentially smoke-voiced and blue collar. It's AC/DC's 'Back in Black' and George Jones' heartbroke wailing, depending on who's at the jukebox. When the George Jones folks get going, they sometimes two-step through the pool tables. Beer comes in cans or bottles, but mostly cans. You can bring hard liquor and buy set-ups, but mostly you drink beer. And play shuffleboard.

CASINO EL CAMINO
517 E. Sixth St., 469-9330
I recently found out my boyfriend, who's lived in Austin for several years, had never had a burger at Casino El Camino. I considered breaking up with him. But it's probably easier just to take him to the punk rock dive, with a serious jukebox, pool tables upstairs, a patio behind the stairs and tattoos everywhere you look. If one of the key elements to a good dive is that it has a person or a thing it's known for, then Casino is a great dive because the burgers are to die for.

DONN'S DEPOT
1600 W. Fifth St., 478-3142
The dive made my list for two reasons: 1) There's shag carpeting in the women's bathroom, and the bathroom is made out of an old train caboose; and 2) dancers young and old congregate and wiggle to the beat. Yes, there's a slow cooker and popcorn, and actually a pretty full bar, but the reason I love the joint is because every time I go, I see older people, younger people and people in between — often dancing to the live music with each other. And because, once, a waitress promised to bring me drinks in the bathroom if I just wanted to hang out in there.

SAM'S TOWN POINT
2115 Allred Drive, 282-0083
This is a fabulous dive for the following reasons: because it's just outside the Austin city limits, you can smoke there. Natural Light, in cans, costs $1.50, and beer comes with an insulated wrap, which you return with your empties. And well, I love the place because the first time I went, I had to jump a curb from an Ace hardware store to get to a little road to wind around to find the bar. (I later discovered that there's an actual turn you can make from Slaughter Lane onto Riddle Road and then to Allred Drive.)

DEEP EDDY CABARET
2315 Lake Austin Blvd., 472-0961
I didn't recognized Deep Eddy Cabaret the first time I went in after the smoking ban took effect. I could see all four walls. At once. But it makes the list because of a thousand kinds of stuff and photos and signs tacked up to the wall behind the bar. Because it has a history: It was a grocery store and bait shack before it was a bar. Because the jukebox has Frank Sinatra and Elvis (Costello and Presley) and most every kind of music you can think of. Because on Saturday afternoon, when a regular walks in, the bartender gets a big glass from the fridge and pours beer into it before he says hello. Deep Eddy feels like its own world.

THE DART BOWL
5700 Grover Ave., 452-2518
Think of it as artistic license when I call the Dart Bowl a dive bar. It's a bowling alley, of course, and really the little café/bar is mostly restaurant, but glory glory hallelujah, it's one fine dive. One of the few dives to survive a move, the Dart Bowl took a whole wall of graffiti from its original location and put it up in the new café — and so its soul stayed intact. My hungover friends swear by the enchiladas. I find it's one of the few places I can have a bourbon no matter what time of day and not have to mutter 'It's five o'clock somewhere' guiltily to myself.

DRY CREEK CAFE AND BOAT DOCK
4812 Mount Bonnell Road, 453-9244
Apparently, Sarah yells a lot. She doesn't talk to reporters, not even bar reporters, but legend has it that if you don't bring back your empties, she'll yell at you. Sarah, who's 93 according to the Dry Creek Café and Boat Dock MySpace page (yes, Dry Creek has a MySpace page), is well-liked by many and feared by plenty. But she's the reason that this dilapidated dive with a water view in the middle of a monied Mount Bonnell neighborhood is on my list. You have to respect a woman with rules who's run a joint like that for 50 years.

THE CLOAK ROOM
1300 Colorado St., 472-9808
The Cloak Room is below ground and above reproach. The place rocks. I met one of my favorite friends there; I've broken my bank account there; I've drunk with classical musicians and roller derby fans there. Anything is possible at this dive alongside the Capitol, including entertaining conversations with lawyers. The bar is full, the jukebox is fuller and the yarn-spinning can be the fullest of all. Plus so little natural light leaks in.

HORSESHOE LOUNGE
2034 S. Lamar Blvd., 442-9111
I don't get over to this South Austin dive much, but I love it because one of the first times I stopped by, there was a box of kittens in the bar that someone was trying to find homes for. I'm not much of a cat person, but those kittens were pretty cute. And a dive ain't a dive unless it's possible that wildlife will be sighted — or looking for a home. The cheap beer, the friendly people and the NASCAR decorations were pretty classic, too.

GINNY'S LITTLE LONGHORN
5434 Burnet Road, 458-1813
I just got treated to a prix fixe chicken dinner and a bottle of viognier, courtesy of Ginny's Little Longhorn: My guy won the Sunday afternoon bingo and took me to supper with the prize money. Hony-tonker Dale Watson came up with the chicken (expletive deleted) bingo idea, and this tiny dive's definitely a honky-tonk. Folks always make room up front for the couples who want to two-step. Show up in the morning, and an actual train engineer might offer to buy you an 8 a.m. beer.

CAROUSEL LOUNGE
1110 E. 52nd St., 452-6790
How many bars do you know of that have circus themes? I know of just one: the Carousel. It's not the set-ups or the cans of beer or the bands or the pinball and Ms. Pac-Man or even the broken '50s-era private jukeboxes that decorate the wall behind each booth. Shoot, it's not even the pink elephant. This bar makes my list because it's where I met Stella Boes, Austin's most fabulous waitress. A senior citizen, a tireless dancer, a wearer of patriotic sparkles and red lipstick, the warm and friendly Stella is the kind of woman who makes dives vibrate with life.