Eating our way through Austin (Part 1)

June 24th & 25th

We could not wait to go out to Austin to visit our friends, Nicki & Mathis. The last time we headed to Texas to visit they were living in New Braunfels and we spent a long weekend exploring there and San Antonio. This Texas adventure put us in the center of Austin with a great city to explore with great friends.

We ended up flying into Dallas instead of Austin and Mathis & Nicki were gracious enough to drive the 3 hours to pick us up. As they picked us up they had a few plans up their sleeves as soon as we got on the road back to Austin.

Our first surprise stop was In N Out! Do they know us or what?! We were so incredibly excited to find ourselves in one of our favorite fast food places.

We weren't on the road long before they introduced us to another must stop/must eat right off the interstate at the Little Czech Stop.

This place was great and I was already wishing I had brought more stretchy pants for this trip.

That evening we headed out to the local area where we first walked to grab a drink at Indian Roller Roadhouse.

After spending some time there we decided to head up the street to grab dinner at Moontower Saloon. This was such a neat place. It was a mostly outside venue with food trucks, drinks and cornhole. We spent the evening here play games and enjoying the local vibe of Austin.

Knowing that we were going to get up stupid early the next morning to experience one of the must do's in Austin, we called it a night pretty early.

We were sitting in line at Franklin Barbecue by 6am and we were surprisingly far back in the line at that hour. We were as prepared as we could be for the long wait ahead of us. Nicki, Jed & I got our base set up while Mathis headed out to get us breakfast tacos from Juan in a Millions. SO GOOD. It was great to watch as tons of others came to join the line, unloading coolers, cornhole boards, radios and chairs. It was wild!

After a few hours, Nicki & I decided to go out exploring to find caffeine. We wandered until we found Vintage Heart Coffee. Such a great little local coffee shop.

When we got back, I was met with a great surprise. Jed’s cousins Lucy and Manolo surprised us and stopped by to say hi. They have recently moved to Austin and saw Jed posting from Franklin’s and decided to stop by to say hi. It was so fun.

Franklin’s doors opened at 11am and Jed & I started to get excited. We were surprised that there was little movement around us. Little did we know that we still had hours to wait before getting in the door.

Passing time

Finally at about 1pm we were in the doors! We were shocked at how small the place was but they had a great system. We ordered way too much food and found a little table for the four of us. I figured this experience would we a bit of a waste on me since I don’t eat 99% of the things that they make but we got a small amount of turkey just to try and I am here to tell you it is by far the absolute best turkey I have every had and it was worth every minute we had to wait in line. We would hands down wait in this line again for this food. Just amazing!

One of the main Franklin guys

Now that we were sufficiently stuffed, we headed back to the house to get cleaned up and regroup for the rest of our day.

We decided we needed to do something that would allow us some moving around so we headed over to the Hope Outdoor Gallery. Talk about graffiti galore! This place was so great. We climbed around the area, taking tons of pictures, looking at all the art and watched artists paint more. No surprise to anyone but we loved it. Loved, loved, loved it. So any stories behind the art, so many encouraging messages, so many inspiring designs. I just love how art can invoke such emotion and how it can impact individuals in such different ways.

We even had the opportunity to tag the area with our hashtag.

The rest of the evening Nicki & Mathis introduced us to two fun night life areas. Our first stop was Rainey Street Historic District. We visited Bangers first. Bangers is known for 30 different sausages and 104 beers of tab. I don’t know how we did it, but we got more food. We swore we weren’t going to eat again for days after Franklin’s but somehow we were eating again. It was good and a great atmosphere. 

After some time at Banger’s we walked to streets to check it all out and made our way into Icenhauer's to watch a little of the World Cup.

Our last destination was 6^th Street. We were so excited to get down there early enough before the mad rush and were able to find great parking. We walked the street just taking it all in, different little shops to check out, restaurants and bars. Once of the things 6^th Street is known for is the Flaming Dr. Peppers. Jed & I had no idea what they were but we knew we had to try one. We were pretty confused when we walked into 2 different bars as asked to no avail. One’s response was “we aren’t set up for that yet”.  After a few tries Touche’ was willing to make us a few Flaming Dr. Peppers. The process of making a Flaming Dr. Pepper is not easy to explain and truly needs to be experienced in person.

I will tell you, it tastes just like a warm Dr. Pepper and is not a drink that you sip.

Mathis & Jed were nice enough to take one for the team and order another round so we could get a few blurry pictures of the experience.

Now that we had crossed that of our Must Do in Life list, we decided to find a place to hang out, play some pool and people watch for above. As we looked for a place to hang out we ran across VooDoo Doughnut! I know what you are thinking, how can you eat anything else. But it was VooDoo Doughnuts and we had to try them even if we had to wait 30 plus minutes in the line in late June when there air conditioning was broken in the heart of Texas.  

We eventually found a great second floor bar that had huge windows where Nicki & I people watched as 6^th Street turned into a walking street with crowds of people from all walks of life. Jed & Mathis were having a super interesting experience with a very high pool player that I could never do justice writing out here.

It wasn’t long before we started to wonder about where we had parked and thought we should make sure the car was okay when we watched it being towed right in front of us. Nicki quickly got Mathis attention as he sprinted down the steps to stop the tow truck while we gathered all our belonging, settled up with our bill and quickly followed after Mathis.

Mathis did a great job with his quick reaction and was able to get the car off the tow truck in the middle of a crowded now walking street and Nicki did a great job navigating all streets with tons of people to get us home from an incredibly memorable day.