The 52 Best Places to Drink and Do in Austin

Nickel City is an East Austin neighborhood bar that has been pouring drinks on this corner since the 1930s and sees no reason to get fancy about it. The focus is cold beer, boilermakers, and draft Pimm's, with the occasional Aperol Spritz for anyone feeling continental. A food truck out back sells Detroit-style Coney dogs and wings, which is how a quick drink turns into a full afternoon.

1. The 50 #96 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Austin
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best U.S. Bar Team

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. Central

1. Wildsam The 50 Most Essential Bars in America
2. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar
3. Eater Best Speakeasies in Austin

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

The building's previous life as a massage parlor is part of the lore here, and Midnight Cowboy leans into it: press the Harry Craddock buzzer at the unmarked Sixth Street door, then slip into a dark booth for cocktails built around a mystery and spirituality theme. It's a reservation-first speakeasy, intimate by design, with a menu deep enough to require genuine deliberation. Food & Wine named it one of the top bars in the US.

1. Food & Wine The 10 Top Bars in the US
2. Eater Best Speakeasies in Austin

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Austin
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Esquire Small Victory Martini · The Best Martinis in America
2. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Austin
3. Eater Best Speakeasies in Austin

1. Eater Best New Cocktail Bar
2. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central

The cocktail menu changes every time the gallery does, which tells you most of what you need to know about Papercut. It's a minimalist East Austin cocktail bar where the drinks are keyed to whatever paintings are currently on the walls, so ordering becomes a little like picking a favorite piece. A back bar called Konbini serves Mexican-Japanese sushi when you need something to eat. The team came up from San Francisco, and the room feels it.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. The Austin Chronicle 2026 · Best Bar That Treats Cocktails Like Art · Best of Austin
3. Eater Best New Bar · The 2025 Eater Austin Award Winners

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Austin
2. Spirited Awards 2024 · Top 10 Nominee · U.S. Bartender of the Year · Caer Maiko Ferguson
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central

1. Punch Frozen Mexican Martini · Our Favorite Cocktails
2. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Austin
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar – U.S. Central

Concrete floors and dark leather in a South Austin building that could pass for a tech lobby, except the menu is French and the martinis have made a small national name for themselves. Le Calamar is a neighborhood bistro where the food leans sharing plates, the wine list sneaks in some Texas pours, and the baked Alaska arrives with honey pecan dacquoise and torched meringue like it has something to prove.

1. Esquire Cornstar Martini · The Best Martinis in America
2. The Austin Chronicle 2026 · Best Prix Fixe Dining Deal · Best of Austin
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

You find it in a basement beneath an alleyway off 6th Street, which is all part of the point. Here Nor There is a speakeasy cocktail bar where the menu rotates around a high concept, past themes like color theory and global exploration, with drinks that take real kitchen-level prep to pull off. Exposed brick, dim lighting, and enough tucked-away corners to make the chaos of Dirty Sixth feel very far away.

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Austin
2. Eater Best Speakeasies in Austin
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Esquire Beertuni · The Best Martinis in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Austin
2. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

A possum framed in cherry blossoms marks the door to this Japanese pop-culture shop tucked under City Hall in the Toy Joy family of stores. Shelves run deep with anime figures, VTuber statuettes, blind boxes, Smiskis, and gachapon machines for anyone who knows exactly what those words mean and is already reaching for their wallet.

1. The Austin Chronicle 2026 · Best New Store for Your Inner Otaku · Best of Austin

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Top 10 Nominee · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar – U.S. Central

A boardwalk over Waller Creek, three new bridges, and 13 acres of bike and pedestrian paths threading from Fourth Street down to Lady Bird Lake: The Confluence is the second phase of a long-running project to stitch a green corridor through downtown Austin. It replaced a stretch of concrete with actual breathing room, which in this city counts as a civic event. Bring a bike or just walk it; either way, Lady Bird Lake is the payoff.

1. The Austin Chronicle 2026 · Best New Patch of Green Downtown · Best of Austin

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. Central

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Austin

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Austin

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Austin

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Austin

A "birds of a feather read together" mural greets you at this queer-, woman-, and veteran-owned indie bookshop in Brentwood, where the vibe is cheerful and the selection is deliberate. Regular programming runs from local author readings to Banned Book Drag Queen Story Time, which tells you pretty much everything about where this shop stands. Families with kids who should be in rooms where books are celebrated, not side-eyed, tend to find their people here.

1. The Austin Chronicle 2026 · Best Flock of Books · Best of Austin

A nursery built around the fact that some plants eat things. Carnivero grows carnivorous and tropical rarities in custom greenhouses west of Austin, with a conservation mission focused on species that are quietly disappearing in the wild. Pitcher plants, flytraps, and stranger things fill the space, priced from beginner-friendly to serious-collector auction territory. Their Instagram is worth a scroll before you visit, so you know what you're getting yourself into.

1. The Austin Chronicle 2026 · Best Carnivorous Plant Shop · Best of Austin

A former church that never quite stopped being one, Cherrywood Center now holds Sunday services and indie rock shows in the same reverberant sanctuary. The vibe is deeply DIY, the acoustics are a happy accident, and the crowd skews young enough to have no memory of what the building used to be. Austin's The Austin Chronicle named it Best Church-Turned-DIY Stage.

1. The Austin Chronicle 2026 · Best Church-Turned-DIY Stage · Best of Austin

A bookshop and cafe tucked into Hyde Park's old post office building, First Light keeps a well-curated shelf of fiction and a staff that actually reads the stock. The kids' section pulls in neighborhood families, while the sidewalk tables out front turn into a slow-afternoon situation: cortado, a novel, neighbors you didn't mean to talk to for forty minutes. Readings with local and touring authors fill the calendar regularly.

1. The Austin Chronicle 2026 · Most Bookish Beating Heart of a Neighborhood · Best of Austin

Every item in this Midtown thrift shop costs $3, no exceptions, no asterisks. The founder started Heartening after watching quality clothes disappear into dumpsters, and the mission has stayed blunt: get clothing back into the community as cheaply as possible. A free outdoor clothing stand extends the idea for anyone who needs it. You can leave with an armload for less than you'd spend on lunch, which is either depressing commentary on lunch prices or a very good Tuesday.

1. The Austin Chronicle 2026 · Best Trash-to-Treasure Stop · Best of Austin

Rows of abandoned trailers and sprawling walls serve as the canvas at this open-air graffiti park near the airport, where spray paint is both the medium and the curriculum. Weekly demos and hands-on classes make it less spectator sport than working studio, and a gift shop stocks stencils and cans for anyone ready to stop watching. The cafe handles the lattes while the walls handle everything else.

1. The Austin Chronicle 2026 · Best Place to Take Budding Artists · Best of Austin

The doorman at this South Congress honky-tonk doubles as librarian, keeping a bartop lending shelf stocked with Stephen King, political memoirs, and science fiction, each copy embossed with his own face. Rod Gator, self-described rock-and-roll Mr. Rogers, curates the whole thing between metal gigs and solo sets. It is a deeply specific cultural artifact, and Sagebrush would not have it any other way.

1. The Austin Chronicle 2026 · Best Memorial Library for Someone Still Alive · Best of Austin

A newsstand painted in bold royal blue on West Fifth, TOMO Mags stocks curated print titles spanning style, design, sport, and cultural niche-ery that most algorithm-driven feeds would never surface. The founder road-tested the concept at markets and pop-ups before landing a brick-and-mortar, so the selection already has a point of view. For anyone who still believes a magazine is an argument worth having on paper.

1. The Austin Chronicle 2026 · Best Newsstand Keeping Independent Presses Printing · Best of Austin

Betty Boop memorabilia, kitty cat pillows, and lipstick lamps make up the decor at this South First vintage shop, which is itself half the shopping experience. Very Cherry Vintage specializes in the pink-and-red end of retro femininity, the kind of stuff that used to take serious thrifting to track down. Owner Ashley curated a room that looks like a mood board came to life, in the best possible way for anyone who prefers their secondhand finds with a little theatrics.

1. The Austin Chronicle 2026 · Most Cherry Spot for Secondhand Finds · Best of Austin

A 13-mile trail running through South Austin where Barton Creek's dry limestone bed meets shaded canyon walls and enough forking paths to make you genuinely question your navigation skills. The Hill Country Conservancy built it out to connect near Barton Springs, so you can walk from the city into something that feels nothing like it. Bring water, because the Texas sun is not a metaphor, and a downloaded map, because the trail markers are optimistic at best.

1. The Austin Chronicle 2026 · Best Place to Get Lost in the Woods · Best of Austin

The Wishbone Bridge finally closes the loop on the Ann and Roy Butler Hike and Bike Trail, replacing a white-knuckle sidewalk wedged between traffic and a long drop into the Colorado River with a proper pedestrian bridge over the lake. Cyclists and evening walkers now get an unobstructed sunset view where the old Longhorn Dam crossing used to test their nerves. The Austin Chronicle named it the best spot for a sunset stroll in 2026, and the case is hard to argue.

1. The Austin Chronicle 2026 · Best Spot for a Sunset Stroll · Best of Austin

Holographic dinosaurs roam the floor at Zoocade, a family entertainment venue that bills itself as the nation's first holographic zoo. The tech, from Axiom Holographics, puts you among T. rexes, ocean depths, and African savanna wildlife without anyone getting eaten, which the movie franchise never quite managed. Classic arcade games fill out the day when the dinos get old, which, judging by the kids, takes a while.

1. The Austin Chronicle 2026 · Best Next-Best-Thing to Jurassic Park · Best of Austin

A daisy painted on the facade of what looks like a converted lobby is all the sign you get, so consider this your heads-up. Daisy Lounge is a speakeasy tucked into a Circle C Ranch strip mall, far from the usual Downtown clusters, with built-in bookshelves, armchairs, and a multi-floor floral interior that reads more cozy library than hidden bar. The cocktail menu runs classics alongside house originals. Book ahead.

1. Eater Best Speakeasies in Austin

1. Eater Best Speakeasies in Austin

1. Eater Best Speakeasies in Austin

1. Eater Best Speakeasies in Austin

1. Eater Best Speakeasies in Austin

1. Eater Best Speakeasies in Austin

1. Eater Best Speakeasies in Austin

They take your phone at the door, lock it away, and mean it. Hidden behind a casual sandwich cafe downtown, Powder Room is an art deco speakeasy where table service and reservations are both required, which sets the tone. Cocktails run from light and herbal to firmly stirred, and the menu is organized by mood rather than spirit. A good place to be present, as they say, whether you planned that or not.

1. Eater Best Speakeasies in Austin

1. Eater Best Speakeasies in Austin

1. Eater Best Speakeasies in Austin

The entrance is a gated alley door with a buzzer, which already tells you something about the evening ahead. Trona is a speakeasy cocktail bar in Central East Austin that draws equally from Mexico and Japan, so mezcal and tequila share the back bar with Japanese whisky. The space runs narrow with a small patio, and reservations are the move. Bringing a date here feels a little smug, which is kind of the point.

1. Eater Best Speakeasies in Austin