Going to San Antonio/Austin
 

Purchased some last minute tickets just to get the wife and I out of town this week. Staying on the Riverwalk in San Antonio then going into Austin, never been there, any cool places to check out? Good places to eat?
Thanks

DO NOT MISS GOING TO "THE SALT LICK" BBQ ---



DO NOT MISS CONTACTING "SW"- In Austin



PM or Call me or him for his info.


DO NOT TAKE ANY RESTAURANT ADVICE FROM "CARBUFF" AKA Bryan. :peepwall: :mock: :stirthepot: :lmao:

I hear the Salt Lick just outside of Austin is a BBQ spot that you shouldn't miss.



You beat me to it GW. X2 on what Weld says.

Pm sent...

SW

Don't miss here:

24 Diner:

Great farm to table food. 24hrs a day (with the exception of Wednesday morning from 1:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. when we’re closed for cleaning). Great beer and wine selection.

Ironworks:

I enjoyed their brisket. I thought of Roger when I saw this place a few years ago.

Austin Speed Shop:

The guys weren't very friendly and they didn't give shop tours, but it was kind of cool to peer through their glass lobby into the shop and get a t-shirt. I'll have to admit I contributed $20 to Jeese's post-West Coast Choppers empire.

:happy23: Since you are staying on the river walk you have to take the boat tour, it adds to the experience... :relax:

Complete D**K'S in there... and frankly so is the idiot that owns it. A monumental waste of time unless you like Aholes and want to buy a hat to prove it. :lol:


I saw the 2 seat "indy car" or whatever it was that they built for taking people around COTA (the new track in Austin) when we were there for the races --- That should have been my first clue not to bother.

The Continental Club on Congress, well the entire scene on Congress is pretty cool. 6th street downtown has lots of good music joints. The guys at Austin Speed Shop have always been cool to me and have always let us wander thru the shop in back and look at what they got going on. Never met "the owner", but I do gotta say he's got a bitchin Merc and he has some mad skills to go with the attitude he (presumably) has.
But I've only "stayed" there for the Lone Star Roundup show, but have been thru town a few other times.

Off the subject, there is a MONSTER gas station called Buc-ee's in New Brumsfield just north of San Antonio that is amazing! It's like the size of a Walmart and doesn't have big truck stuff. They have bathroom attendants that clean the stall every time it's used! Yes, I am easily impressed!! LoL! :hapdance:

Thanks all, we'll be flying out tomorrow and will check out a few of these places.:thumbsup:

Enjoy you trip Lenie.

Thanks Wayne, going to try and not purchase a hat per Weld:poke: :lol:

If you enjoy a good hamburger, go to "hopdoddy" on south congress. Its actually across the street, and up a little bit from continental club. The line may look long, and out the door, but its not that bad of a wait. Its also worth it. The salt lick is in driftwood, about 25 minutes out of Austin. The drive can be very nice going out there, you get to see some good hillcountry. If you drive up to Austin from S.A. then you should stop at the Bucees in New Braunfels to see the "cleanest bathrooms in the country", also they have some ridiculous like 85 gas pumps. Honestly South Congress would be a very good place to walk on a nice day, in Austin. As for night life in Austin, Rainy street would be a cool place to go and have drinks. THere are a couple spots to eat out there as well.

Hey Lenie --

"Remember the Alamo" :D

And have a great trip,

:cheers:

,

Ron, did the Alamo, did the riverwalk thing, ate a lot, walked a lot, hooking up with SW this week and my car should be finished mid Oct after almost 8 years...Man life is good!
Ron, you going to SEMA this year?

Great News.

Love that Lenny! See you at the Lat-G party Wed night :yes:

[QUOTE=GregWeld;502415]DO NOT MISS GOING TO "THE SALT LICK" BBQ ---
DO NOT MISS CONTACTING "SW"- In Austin

Greg/Rob good call, food was excellent. Funny short story, had no idea it was in the same parking lot as the Round Rock AAA baseball team, A kid I coached for many years and best buds w/my son since about age 8, Aaron Cunningham has played in the bigs up and down for the past 5-6 years for several different teams played there this year, missed him by a day, had to call and give him a little sh=t.
Greg, great call on SW.

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Thanks, next time the boat tour first to get acquainted w/surroundings. Whole walk pretty fun, food and drinks plentiful!

Jimmy, we stayed on S. congress and had an absolute blast, downtown 6th also sweet, music everywhere!

On a side note, Buc-ee;s,,,,,I'm also easily impressed:D :D

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SW took us out to dinner at an amazing Italian restaurant (Thanks again SW, above and beyond the call of duty). Had a great time w/you and your girlfriend. Greg Weld called it, very good people, made us feel very comfortable. Also, a couple of days later got to go to SW's daytime hang out, THE GREATEST MANCAVE OF ALL TIME, ALL TIME! Did I also mention, outstanding taste in vehicles/play toys. Thanks again, had a great time.

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me/SW and the red ta, beautiful car.

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SW and my wife Terisa



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Ron the Alamo, guy in the big hat had questions regarding your past!:D

Looks like you had a good time Lenie! Glad to hear it - it's a nice town - and hold some real good people!

Yes glad you got to hang out with SW he is a great guy and has an amazing Trans Am collection going on. :thumbsup:

Also good to hear you managed to avoid Brian's advice on BBQ :stirthepot: and had a good meal.

:cheers:

Sounds like a good time, maybe I need to do that! LoL!

That's cause I was spotted stumbling around the front door @ 3:am :D

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:cheers:

It was great meeting you guys in person. Next time you guys come in, we will have to go for a ride in something fast..:)

Really? Do you have anything that qualifies? :>)

I think so, just got the stains out of the passenger seat of the Ferrari you rode in!!:D :mock:

I threw those pants away.....

Do you think that Motorcycle rider is still scratching his head? :headscratch:

:cheers:

Going to add this in in case someone does what I was doing and runs across this thread - I reviewed this thread and a couple other Austin threads before going last weekend - I can say a few items we did rose to the top.

To start with, two words...

Franklin BBQ

I literally about shat myself when I tried the brisket. This was the first thing we did in Austin and pretty much ranks #1 for me! Don't waste time driving for the hype of Salt Lick and so forth; the others don't hold a candle. I have had better BBQ in Boulder CO than Salt Lick. Indeed, I have had a fair amount of BBQ in my time and hands down the brisket at Franklin is likely the most amazing thing I have ever eaten. We barely squeaked thru the door and they ran out about 10 people after us. I had brisket and sausage, both rocked, and Kristi had the sandwich that kicked butt also, but the brisket, man oh man. Did I mention the brisket?

Checking out the bats from the bridge on Congress was pretty cool too. For about 20 minutes straight thousands of bats were coming out non-stop. Funky odor to boot.

If you like art, the art gallery at U of Tx was great as well and had a lot more on display than I would have ever guessed. We got there around 3pm not realizing it closed at 5pm and we could have used another hour or two at least.

Bar scene on Dirty Six was pretty much what I was told it would be so we went a little further west and found some good drink spots. Cheaper drinks on the dirty end so we would hit it here and there during the day before the youngins came out. Rainy Ave on Friday night was crawling with eye candy - er - entertainment.

Last but not least, the Gourdough's donut truck in SoCo (we saw one later on 6th as well but we did the SoCo truck). We bought $25 in donuts to try a few - I was sick from the sugar rush most of the night but totally worth it. Cherry Bombs if I recall correctly were freakin' sugar overload but damn good, and the Carnie or whatever had apples and caramel was my fave. I literally felt like crap because we could not stop eating them, so pace yourself haha. I would do it again tho', that is how good they were.

Oh yeah, The Noble Pig in NW Austin/Lake Travis area = the duck pastrami is indeed deserving of all the hype as well. Super small spot and no sign on the road so a bit hard to find. If I lived in Austin I would hit that place once per week and take a cooler every other week to Franklin, wait in line for 3 hours, and load up. I would weigh 300lbs if I moved there :popcorn2:

And, BTW, I am taking over, see the pic of me inside the Capitol building :mock:

As you can tell, our vacations pretty much consist of eating and drinking with random activities in between.

Tim, I wished you had called me, my office is about a block away from the Noble Pig!

Glad you enjoyed the visit! You definitely made a good choice on the BBQ. What time did you arrive? On the 2 occasions in which I've gone, we've gotten there about 9:30 to get in line. It doesn't open until 11:00, and they sell out daily around 12:30 - 1:00. It is amazing though!

Gourdoughs does rock too! They have an actual restaurant across the street from a friend of mine, so we go there for all sorts of doughnut creations. Good stuff.

I've been to the Noble Pig once. It was great, but way out of the way for me. But as SW said, his shop is right there...

I had seriously considered it but I was in town with the fiancee and she wanted no part of my "car habit" on our vacation. I got her bought into going to COTA to see it before our flight out Monday eve but it started pouring rain on the way there so I just went to the airport. I won that battle but lost the war anyway I guess haha.

I would seriously eat at the Noble Pig a couple times per week if I were a block away. I can see why the guy at the counter (an owner or the owner, recognized him from TV) is the size he is; I would be grazing at all hours if I worked there.
Let's start with the fact that typically I am not a lucky person... we didn't get to Franklin until 12:35pm! I had already mentally prepared to just drive by, wave at the line, and head on to 6th Street. One of the workers there that was doing a head count around 1:15 told us we got incredibly lucky because last Friday, for whatever reason, was unusually light! Still waited 1:45 mins in line (I know these times because I set my watch just to see how bad it would be) so we got food after 2pm! She also handed a guy the "last man standing" sign about 6 people back after her head count at 1:15.

Any other day she assured us it would have been a bust coming at that time and that normally the wait was twice as long. There were people that came at 1:45 and squeaked in taking whatever was left.

Cool people in line right before and after us so we got tons of tips on where to go too. Actually everyone in general was really nice and pretty helpful. I asked for directions near the school to find the art gallery and the guy damn near gave me a rundown of every event that was happening at the school that weekend.

That luck continued throughout most of the weekend as well, especially with parking. I ended up getting rock star parking on Rainy on that Friday night, the last spot available at the Gourdough's truck, then on 6th 3 blks from Congress Sat night and Sunday night, right by the Capitol building when we went, right across from the school for the art museum. If I didn't know any better I would assume it is always easy to park in Austin :D

Of course, when I planned the trip I specifically picked the weekend after Labor Day weekend as I figured it would be slow and easier to navigate the town so apparently that bet paid off.

Lenie what Italian place did yall eat at?

Botticellis