East 6th Street Austin
Traveling to and then partying on East 6th street Austin, Texas, is tantamount to meeting a set of twins that have extremely different personalities.
If one were to walk from one end of 6th street to its other end, you would be utterly convinced that you are crisscrossing between two entirely different, yet similar worlds.
Sticking to the “twins” analogy, “east sixth” would be the more colorful, slightly weird, mischievous and never boring sibling, while “west sixth” would be the sibling who probably was sent off to a posh or fancy boarding school, fun, but sophisticated, and, mature in disposition.
6th street is located in the downtown district of Austin, Texas and is the entertainment epicenter of Austin. If you are looking to travel to and partake in Austin’s awesome nightlife, more often than not the trail would probably lead you here.
With lots of clubs, bars, restaurants, food trucks, live music venues, and, more, any traveler would be left wondering how the good folks at the city office were able to fit all this good stuff onto one street.
6th street is separated into east and west by Congress avenue. (The view of the capitol on Congress avenue is well worth it by the way).
As we described earlier, any traveler visiting East 6th for the first time would notice that it is fun and at the same time, mildly weird. Both ends of East 6th; are lined by clubs, bars, and restaurants.
The choices of where to party seem almost infinite. In fact, unless you have amazing stamina visiting all the bars on the strip would probably be impossible.
Any observant traveler like we did would notice that the crowd here from what we found often tends to be younger professionals, and college students from surrounding universities like the University of Texas, Austin (Go longhorns!!!) and travelers from neighboring states in the south.
The vibe is usually that of “anything goes” and the street itself during peak business hours is usually as packed as the bars on its opposite sides.
Unlike other similar strips in Europe and Asia that we visited while traveling through those regions, last call was at 1:30 am and at 2 am everything shuts down.
Around 2:15 am, police officers mounted on horseback start herding everyone back to their cars to end the evening of partying.
To really capture the essence of East 6th street while in Austin, we would advise an arrival time of 10pm. That way you can visit a couple of bars, mingle with locals in the street, and then end the night at one of the clubs on the strip.
Food and Beverage is not as expensive as the larger and more established cities in North America. While it is not as cheap as maybe Asia, hitting the bars here hard will probably not cripple a traveler or clubbers bank account.
As stated earlier the options of places to go on east 6th seem to be infinte. However, there are a couple of places that are a must visit for any traveler. That is, if the younger, grungy and rowdier scene is where you fit in.
1. The Blind Pig Pub
317 E 6th Street,
Austin, TX, 78701
The blind pig pub is awesome if you are in the 21 to 25 age bracket. The crowd here is usually younger and very lively.
There is a bar downstairs but most of the action goes on upstairs where there is a large terrace with a podium for bands, a bar and a large space covered by tents for dancing. The music is usually Hip hop, Top 40, and, a sprinkling of dance and dubstep.
Partytrailing the Blind pig was simply awesome. We would definitely recommend it to anyone traveling to Austin as a must-visit spot.
2. Bat Bar
218 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701
(512) 474-6363
We got to partytrail this bar when we to traveled to Austin for Halloween. For a strip that already has a reputation for being eccentric, things were taken to a whole new level. It was all in good fun though.
The layout of Bat bar is similar to the Blind pig pub except there was no open terrace upstairs. The DJ was definitely great and word on the street is that they always have a good DJ playing whenever they are open for business. We would definitely recommend this as another must visit spot.
3. Amped
300 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701
(512) 669-3897
Amped definitely crosses the boundaries of what defines a pub. We are going to call “nightclub” on this one. Amped has really good music and some really polite bouncers.
There are two floors, a striper pole on the bottom floor for the ladies. (Note: Amped is not a strip club).
The bottom floor is more of a lounge bar where you can get drinks. The top floor is where most of the dancing happens. Amped, we would suggest is better suited to someone who wants to close their night out at a club after downing a few beers at a bar not too far away.
4. Shakespeare’s Ale House
This bar is right opposite the Blind pig pub and is also a lot of fun. It is similar to Blind pig pub in that it also has a rooftop terrace that is open.
The difference is that it seems like most of the dancing here goes on downstairs while the lounge and bar are upstairs. The music here is also great and it has tons of college students.
5. Kingdom
103 E 5th Street, Austin, TX 78701
Kingdom is our only entry not located on E 6th street. That is fine because it is worth mentioning. For those of you who like to party past 2 am.
Kingdom is one of the few “after-hours” nightclubs in Austin, Texas. Our advice for anyone traveling to Austin and hoping to party on E 6th street is that you to Kingdom at around 2:30 am to avoid the long lines of after-hours partiers. It’s open on Thursdays, Fridays or Saturdays.
On a final note, the above listed bars are a snap shot of the bountiful options any one who travels to Austin would find on East 6th street.
For other options not listed above, We advise talking a stroll down East 6th street to be truly able to capture the essence of this strip. Have fun exploring!!!
In our Next Post: Austin-Jewel of the south (III), we explore the ins and outs of East sixth’s more refined sibling(West 6th street). So don’t get off the trail just yet……
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