Austin Monthly March/April 2023

50 Everything Under the Bun

Smoked, smashed, or chic steakhouse— here are all the burgers (in every style) you have to try.

62

Booze, Brawls & Bands Behaving Badly

Nearly five decades’ worth of owners, regulars, and musicians tell the wild history of legendary campus venue the Hole in the Wall.

72

House of Cards

Austin’s housing crisis is reaching a tipping point, and NIMBY neighborhood groups are making it even more insurmountable.

JESSICA ATTIE

Loro’s burger gets a double-shot of smoke thanks to a layer of brisket jam.

Scout 17

It’s an artist-first agenda at Spaceflight Records 18

The sparkling star behind Glitter and Lazers 20

Central Texas looks to get back in the film and TV world in a big way 22

Mini golf mecca The Dirdie Birdie is an ode to ATX 24

Feast 27

Uptown Sports Club finally finds a second life 28

The new rules for tipping 30

Bottle shock! Mexico is the toast of the wine world 32

Beat 35

Is Austin ready for a “big three” sports franchise? 36

Kirk Watson’s return to the mayoral office 38

The city’s skyline is soon to be the tallest in Texas 40

Historic businesses deserving of city safeguarding 42

Odd Duck by Jessica Attie.

Set design by Audrey Davis

March/April

Editor in Chief

Chris Hughes

Creative Director

Sara Marie D’Eugenio

EDITORIAL

Executive Editor

Madeline Hollern

Associate Editor

Bryan C. Parker

Contributing Writers

Lee Ackerley, Omar Gallaga, Dan Gentile, Ali Khan

ART

Contributing Photographers

Jessica Attie, Dave Creaney, John

Davidson, Annie Ray, Drew Anthony Smith, Jordan Vonderhaar

Contributing Illustrators

Doug Chayka, Diego Patiño

DIGITAL

Digital Managers

Rosie Ninesling, Abigail Stewart

INTERNS

Brenna Erwin, Alyssa G Olvera

ADVERTISING

Publisher

Stewart Ramser

Senior Account Executive

Tina Mullins

Account Director

Dana Horner

Account Executives

Annemarie Gist, Julia Grisemer

Sales Operation Manager

Kiely Whelan

EVENTS

Events Director

Lauren Sposetta

CEO

Todd P. Paul

President

Stewart Ramser

Editorial Director

Rebecca Fontenot Cord

Director of Operations

Hollis Boice

CIRCULATION

Audience Development Director

Kerri Nolan

Circulation Manager

Julie Becker

ACCOUNTING

Accounting Manager

Sabina Jukovic

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Editor’s Letter

Special Sauce

I COME FROM that generation where, as a child, working for the weekend meant Muppet Babies, two competing troops of Ghostbusters, and a mixed-bag of Saturday morning cartoons. How bad could that Friday math test be when there was the promise of Snorks in less than 24 hours? But besides those earworm jingles and technicolor characters, it was the ancillary action in-between that so captivated me: namely, Grimace, the Hamburglar, and all the inhabitants of McDonaldland dominating commercial breaks.

Like so many kids in the ’80s and ’90s, I was thoroughly indoctrinated into the adoration of the American hamburger via a beef-peddling clown and his battalion of Fry Guys. Try as I might to the contrary, the burger remains a fixture of my food fascination decades later. That’s one of the reasons I was so ravenous to tackle our homage to the dish, “Everything Under the Bun” (p. 50), which looks at more than 35 places stretching the limits of what’s possible with just cheese, ground proteins, and some bread.

After a couple months of burger “research,” I began to feel like Alexander Tominsky—the guy in Philly who ate 40 roast chickens over the course of 40 days last fall. Acid reflux and salt overload became second nature, but even amid the perpetual indigestion, I caught a glimpse of how it captures the American psyche. The humble hamburger is an ideal canvas to reflect personal history, such as chef Mariha Hinojosa’s torta version at La Plancha, which harkens back to her grandfather’s backyard grill in Brownsville. Or Michael Fojtasek’s titular Gimme Burger that pays tribute to the Jack’s Burger House standard he grew up eating in Dallas. Now, their respective interpretations are becoming the new formative flavors of today’s Austin.

Another icon that straddles the fence between nostalgia and constant reinvention is the Hole in the Wall, a truck-stopstyle restaurant that became the campus area’s most beloved dive. In his in-depth oral history of the nearly 50-year-old joint (“Booze, Brawls & Bands Behaving Badly,” (p. 62), writer Dan Gentile talks to a cast of former and current owners, employees, musicians, and regulars who’ve witnessed it all—from cosmic cowboys and 3 a.m. wrestling matches to grunge celebrities raising hell in one of the city’s most infamously seedy bathrooms.

As musician Mike McCoy says of that imbibing institution, “It’s not a place you go to get healthy.” An underdog in a changing city, it remains a harbor for so many. A relic of a bygone era, it can feel like biting into a juicy Dirty Martin’s burger: comfort personified. Just like a taste of home.

Chris Hughes Editor in Chief chughes@austinmonthly.com @cmhughestx

@chris_hughestx

Green Piece

In 2018, interior designer Alex Cisneros’ client gave her a rating system for decorating his living spaces: PG signified a neutral design, while PG-13 and up allowed for more boldness. When envisioning his penthouse in DC, “he wanted it to be [rated] R,” she remembers, “but had to keep it PG because he’s kind of in politics.” After viewing a garden exhibit in Miami, Cisneros dreamed up a “living” greenery facade as the perfect compromise. To make her signature plant artwork, the Willow Work Design

founder starts by adding dimension with foam boulders, then covers them with green moss mats and artificial plants such as orchids, laurels, and reindeer moss. The Austinite has designed for residential spaces as well as local companies including Taverna and SunLife Organics, where she morphed two giant wings made of amethyst into a lotus flower design on their plant wall. See timelapsed videos of her decor coming to life on Instagram at @willowworkdesign. —Madeline Hollern

Sound Decision

By shifting the model in favor of the artist, one local nonprofit record label is ready to play to a larger audience.

BY LEE ACKERLEY

INFAMOUS FOR ITS inequity, the music industry has historically operated as a feudal system: one that necessitates artists entering into contracts of near-indentured servitude with record labels. Yet this traditional model is being challenged by local nonprofit music label Spaceflight Records, which has pioneered a new way for artists to release music without taking on debt or giving up royalties.

The genesis began with the frustration founder Brett Orrison experienced while producing Kalu & the Electric Joint’s debut album, Time Undone, in 2017. Orrison created the label to support Kalu’s psychedelic soul record but quickly realized that there was a complete lack of resources and funds to effectively market the album. After a conversation with City Music Manager Erica Shamaly, he relaunched Spaceflight as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and enlisted the help of fellow creatives Samara Simpson, a former adjunct professor who taught live music and talent management at ACC, and Sam Wainwright Douglas, a local director and filmmaker.

“There are a lot of nonprofits that support artists learning the business, but no one’s actually doing the business hand-in-hand alongside [them],” Or-

rison says. “[We’re] giving them a platform to properly release their music without them getting into a bad record deal where they would never see much profit or advantages in the long run.”

By subsidizing the cost of promotion, development, and distribution thanks to the help of community donations, grants, and corporate partnerships, the nonprofit allows artists the opportunity to thrive without the onus of financial risk. Its fellowship program covers the cost to manufacture and release a record so musicians can keep 100 percent of proceeds—an arrangement that’s among the first of its kind in the business. Spaceflight is also fostering equitable deals where it’s able to provide contracts to a larger pool of talent for a smaller royalty than other label heavyweights. But its most valuable resource to artists might be its dynamic 10-person advisory board, which features an eclectic mix of industry paragons like Black Pumas’ Adrian Quesada, former MTV marketing executive Mark Greenberg, C3 Presents talent buyer Quinn Donahue, and Austin Music Foundation director Jennifer Dugas.

Now entering its sixth year, Spaceflight Records is no longer a utopian supposition but a proven concept. Its genre-diverse roster boasts more than 30 artists who are a microcosm of the Austin music zeitgeist, with more female- and POC-fronted acts than any label in the city. Many, such as Trouble in the Streets, Primo the Alien, and Urban Heat, have already seen tremendous growth (the latter two just performed at ACL Fest 2022), while a cadre of established local artists like Calliope Musicals, Golden Dawn Arkestra, and Christeene have brought experience and name recognition to the brand.

From left: Spaceflight Records’ Sam Wainwright Douglas, Brett Orrison, and Samara Simpson.

With four fellowships planned for 2023 and a SXSW showcase happening in March, momentum continues to build for Spaceflight. Whether the radical seed of change can germinate and transform the music industry on the whole remains a lofty goal, but the group has already proven that institutional change is not impossible. “When someone gets their song on the radio for the first time, getting to see that reaction is really special to me,” Simpson says. “Anytime somebody checks something off of their list of what they consider success—whether that’s playing ACL or touring or getting a really nice write-up—that’s what is most rewarding.”

PRESS PLAY

Four Spaceflight acts to put on your radar this year.

Trouble in the Streets

Six years after bursting on the local scene with their provocative electro-tribe sound, Nnedi Nebula and Andy Leonard will release the band’s much-anticipated debut album, Satisfy Saturn, this April.

Primo the Alien

Synth-pop sensuality and brazen ’80s eccentricity find their way into the power pop anthems of multi-instrumentalist Primo the Alien, aka Laura Lee Bishop. Akin to a cyborg Olivia Newton-John getting physical in a dystopian future, Primo recently released her new EP, Heart on the Run

Urban Heat

New wave synth melodies and fortified industrial beats have made this post-punk trio a fast-rising prospect. Featuring the dark baritone and goth-inspired charms of its magnetic frontman, Jonathan Horstmann, the band embarked on its first national tour last fall.

Night Glitter

The trilingual empress of the Austin music scene, LouLou Ghelichkhani (Thievery Corporation) entrances audiences with her cinematic psych-pop project, Night Glitter. Austin’s favorite chanteuse will team up with producer/engineer John Michael Schoepf for the band’s sophomore album in 2023.

Go for the Bold

A local social media maven has built her brand on style, humor, and being authentic.

BY MADELINE HOLLERN

FOR ANNA O’BRIEN, no fashion style is off limits. With a combined 11 million followers on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, the Austinite has amassed an international fanbase by modeling an array of eye-catching outfits across her platforms, from gorgeous mustard one-shoulder gowns and Barbieinspired magenta tulle dresses to two-piece teal swimsuits and a playful neon yellow “I’m Fat Let’s Party” shirt.

Far from your typical influencer, O’Brien actually joined Instagram in 2015 while working as a program manager for Sprinklr and testing out its content management software. Her style-centric posts grew so quickly in popularity that they flooded the company’s demo data, prompting them to suggest she actually take it down. Instead, she decided to develop the account and eventually went full-time with Glitter and Lazers three years later.

Though her platform centers around plus-size fashion and body-positivity as well as fitness, travel, and other lifestyle content, the 38-year-old has ultimately built her brand around unabashed confidence paired with genuine vulnerability. “Everyone always wants a backstory of, like, ‘I hated myself, and then through the internet I found [self-esteem].’ And that’s actually not it,” she says. Instead, O’Brien has always based her self-assurance on talent versus physical appearance. “When you build your foundation and your self-identity on your abilities, as unique as they are, it’s really hard to attack your confidence,” she says. Be on the lookout for her new podcast, slated to debut later this year, and follow her on Instagram and TikTok at @glitterandlazers and on YouTube at youtube .com/@glitterandlazers.

PERFECT FIT

O’Brien names three of her favorite size-inclusive local brands.

1 I found out about Nina Berenato when she was selling out of her Airstream near a food truck park by Barton Springs. I love that her pieces tell a story and empower their wearers. Her latest collection (Venus) is an ode to self-love and personal discovery.

2

Miranda Bennett Studio is a sustainable apparel and accessories brand. I appreciate the earthy, raw quality of their natural dyes. I love that their studio also offers classes on using plants and natural materials to dye fabric.

3 Rhae is the retail experience of my dreams: size-inclusive, fun, and full of whimsy. Offering sizes XS to 3X, the brand wanted to make sure everyone can find something in their store. I found out about this boutique through my good friend and fellow creator @emelyturish.

Reel Estate

With a massive campus coming to San Marcos, a cutting-edge movie and television studio looks to revitalize the Texas film industry.

BY MADELINE HOLLERN

WHILE THE AUSTIN metro area has been home to many notable cinematic productions over the decades—from Friday Night Lights and Fear the Walking Dead to Dazed and Confused and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre—the region has yet to have a large-scale film and television facility of its own. But all of that is changing with the arrival of Hill Country Studios, soon to be one of the largest studios of its kind in Texas.

Breaking ground in San Marcos this spring—and slated to officially debut in the second quarter of 2024—the new $267 million, 75-acre development co-founded by industry veterans Cory McLoud and Zach Price will feature 12 sound stages, including a highly anticipated virtual production stage that uses interactive video game engines to create virtual real-time sets. The sprawling campus will include 310,000 square feet of studio sound stages and 15 acres of outdoor production space, as well as dedicated workspaces for construction crews, wardrobe departments, and more.

Making Texas a bigger hub for cinema is one of the studio’s ultimate goals, says Hill Country Studios chief operating officer Kevin Bar, whose industry experience includes leadership roles with Netflix and Pinewood Studios. While enticing tax incentives have caused many film companies to opt for states like Georgia, New Mexico, and Louisiana in recent years, Hill Country Studios wants to get production back in the Lone Star State.

“You have places like New Mexico and Georgia who have built so many studios, and a number of crews and vendors have moved there. They’ve created a whole ecosystem over the last five or six years because everyone’s very confident in the incentive,” he says, adding, “We’re working with key stakeholders in the state who have all put a collective effort together to lobby for a stronger incentive over the next couple of years.”

In addition to film and television projects, the studio will provide space to produce gaming, commercials, and branded content. And this production hub isn’t the only one coming to the area: A new film studio and entertainment district called Bastrop 552 is slated to debut near its namesake town east of Austin this coming August. As the film industry looks to grow in Central Texas this year, Bar hopes his studio can set in motion a ripple effect. “We can really scale up the industry across the board, from infrastructure to crew services to productions, and create a great experience so that it really can be a good starting point for more studios to come within the state,” he says. After a notable lapse over the last decade, it seems Central Texas is, once again, ready for its close-up.

Hill Country Studios will include 12 sound stages and a high-tech virtual production stage.

The Hole Package

A new high-tech mini golf course at The Domain is an homage to the capital city.

BY MADELINE HOLLERN

Fast Lane

The intricate ninth hole has a model of the unmistakable red-and-white observation tower at Circuit of The Americas. Putters can aim their shot to the left side, which goes underneath the tower, or the right side, which accesses a ramp to the lower level where the hole is located. But the most strategic shot is toward the middle, which lifts the ball up the tower before rolling it down in a spiral. “That shot—it’s a tougher shot—will likely get you a hole-in-one,” Vik says.

Capitol B

Topping out at 6 feet tall, this diminutive version of the Texas Capitol is made of plywood and medium density fiberboard (MDF). The building has three entrances for the ball to pass through, and while the middle route is the best bet for an ace shot, you’ll first have to get past a rotating windmill—a staple of classic mini golf obstacles. All 12 of The Dirdie Birdie’s holes were designed by Oakland-based Nine & Eye.

In the mood to go clubbing ? Locals are flocking to miniature golf mecca The Dirdie Birdie for putts and pints. Opened in November at The Domain, the new entertainment venue-bar-restaurant hybrid owned by local couple Vik and Lina Khasat features collaborations with Austin heavy hitters like restaurateur Nic Yanes (Juniper, Verbena), who curated the menu, and architecture firm Clayton Korte, which handled the interiors. Challenge your friends to a round as “caddies” deliver drinks to your crew. Here, we highlight four of our favorite holes. dirdiebirdieatx.com

A perfect tribute to the Live Music Capital of the World, the tenth hole is (literally) music to your ears. Putt your ball into the hammered-out sousaphone and then watch as a small vacuum elevates and shoots it down a series of birdhouses and ramps, hitting wind chimes all the way down. The ball even hits a snare drum, a tom, a bass drum, and a massive cymbal as it rolls toward its final target.

Bat Country Step into the dark, trippy “bat cave” for the fifth hole, which draws inspiration from the winged creatures that emerge nightly from the South Congress bridge. Lit up by ever-changing LED lights, the cave was assembled piece by piece with stacked MDF and features illuminated mushrooms as well as stalactites and stalagmites.

BXSW

Bread Winner

How do you create a cohesive restaurant concept with multiple partners who have never worked together before? For the eclectic group behind Dovetail Pizza in the Bouldin Creek neighborhood, all six co-owners crafted individual menus and cherry-picked the most interesting items. For instance, the oblong tavern-style pizza that Todd Duplechan (Lenoir) brought to the table? The chef drew inspiration for the restaurant’s namesake dish from memories of “fancy” pizza nights at Campisi’s during his youth in suburban Dallas. Ben Runkle (Salt &

Time) got nostalgic, too, and mined the depths of his time in New Mexico, where Navajo fry bread (pictured) is a point of pride. Largely unheard of in Austin, the Native American staple at Dovetail is instead forged from King Arthur Sir Galahad flour, fried in canola oil, and topped with seasonal ingredients like charred winter eggplant dusted with sharp Mimolette cheese. “As chefs, it’s funny how you continually find yourself coming back to the things you first discovered,” says Duplechan. “We’re hitting those notes we loved as a kid.” —Chris Hughes

Welcome to the Club

After an arduous revival, two of Austin’s biggest hospitality gurus prepare to unveil Uptown Sports Club to a new era. BY CHRIS HUGHES

BEFORE THE KIDNEY-SHAPED sign, “Astroturf trailer park” aesthetic, and notorious string of patrons snaking around his teal-accented 11th Street barbecue joint, Aaron Franklin had another location in mind for his dream brick-and-mortar. It was an abandoned building at the corner of East Sixth and Waller Street, which he found himself repeatedly drawn to by its wooden pennant awning and corner orientation—the kind of shotgun-style architecture found in New Orleans, where the front doorway is cut at a 45-degree angle. Formerly a German butcher shop, bakery, and neighborhood bar, Uptown Sports Club (just one of its many iterations) now lay derelict, its dirt floors untrod for decades.

In those pre-2009 reveries, Franklin couldn’t have known that there was another local business leader eyeing that same 1800s building for a live music venue (instead, he opened the Mohawk on Red River Street). Now his partner in the Hot Luck food and music festival, James Moody would even-

tually team up with the lauded pitmaster, as well as Fort Worth–based lawyer Jason Jones, to purchase that coveted property from the family of late owner Ron Hernandez in 2016—years after “stalking it from a distance.”

But unlike their previous ventures, where they sought to wedge in some preconceived idea, there was no immediate plans for Uptown Sports. Instead, Franklin says he just soaked in the ambience, lay on the ground, and let the structure speak to him.

“I took a couple beers and met Moody over there one afternoon,” he recalls. “We sat in this damp, dirty, cold building until it struck me. I said: ‘This would be a really cool, dimly lit all-day bar, with coffee in the morning, counter service at lunch, and the type of food we grew up with in Louisiana.’”

To his point, Moody originally hails from New Orleans—and Franklin has family from all over the southern part of state—so it wasn’t a hard sell as the chef fleshed out a menu of po’ boys stuffed with the likes of fried shrimp and hot roast beef debris drowning in an inky gravy laden with fried garlic bits and trim from Franklin Barbecue’s famous brisket. The latter could also be found in boudin formed in terrine pans, then seared on a griddle like Spam. Rounding it out is a labor-intensive dark roux chicken-and-sausage gumbo (“If it’s lighter than a Hershey’s chocolate bar, I’m out,” he likes to say) that takes five days to pull off. The result is so rich, the James Beard Award winner describes it as “liquid brisket.”

James Moody and Aaron Franklin inside their most daunting project yet.

Franklin says he soaked in the ambience and let the structure speak to him.

Yet, there are further flights of fancy. Shrimp cocktail and crab Louie, like you’d find at Swan Oyster Depot in San Francisco, one of Franklin’s favorite restaurants. Midwest supper club classics such as steak frites and crudités. Consider those the creative consequences of an overactive imagination as they tumbled into a pandemic, and the restoration project turned into a 7-year slog.

What first drew the duo to the space is also what ultimately made it the most challenging feat in their respective careers. To preserve its singular 19th-century charm, the group brought in Tenaya Hills, vice president of design and development at Bunkhouse Group, as well as Michael Hsu and Ken Johnson of Hsu Office of Architecture, to delicately restore everything from the collapsed ceiling to the crumbling mortar of the brick veneer. Even after securing federal and state tax incentives, not to mention a City of Austin Heritage Grant for nearly $200,000, Moody discloses that the economics of Frankenstein-ing the real estate from a state of rubble still barely works.

“It would have been way easier to tear it down and build a white box like everything else in the area,” he says. “But then it not only loses all of its charm, it would detract from the charm of the entire neighborhood.”

On the eastern side of the building, previous owners who’ve taken over the lease have signed their name, and subsequently painted over the former. Now, almost a decade after inking their name to the deed, Franklin and Moody have the opportunity to etch their own signatures on the historic facade, and the weight of stewardship hangs heavy as they prepare to open this spring. “I’m so nervous about this,” Franklin says, his smile breaking into a tense giggle. “It’s the big one.”

The New Rules for Tipping

DURING THE PANDEMIC, it wasn’t unusual for consumers to dig a little deeper to help small businesses and employees putting themselves in harm’s way—a phenomenon that became known as “tipflation.” But gratuity fatigue has begun to settle in, with many in the industry even exhausted by the conversation. For instance, Better Half Coffee & Cocktails co-owner Matthew Bolick describes the entire custom as a “systematic failure.” But it’s also a model not going away anytime soon. To help navigate the practice, we asked local hospitality experts on the current tipping etiquette for whenever the touch screen is flipped your way. —C. Hughes

Are you going to a restaurant? Is anybody waiting on you? No, I want to something quick and convenient.

Absolutely! We’re going out to celebrate.

Full Service

Forget doubling the tax on your bill. C.K. Chin (Wu Chow, Toshokan) says that old chestnut is dead and buried, as the industry standard has crept up to 20 percent across the board. In fact, at nicer restaurants with lots of support staff, 25 percent is more typical nowadays.

I think I’ll pull up at these picnic tables. The Horns are on TV, it’s time to crash in front of the couch.

Food Truck

What if I’m buying an expensive bottle of wine?

Sommeliers are providing a certain level of salesmanship, so even if it seems outlandish, a 15 to 20 percent tip is considered the norm for that kind of hands-on service. “It’d be like going to a Bugatti dealership and negotiating down on some floor mats,” Chin says. For crowler fills, it’s still 20 percent. But if you’re just snagging a 4-pack out of the fridge, consider throwing in an extra buck

Pitmaster Evan LeRoy of LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue says that for too long, these mobile vendors have been unfairly lumped in with the customs of fast food. Consider that some of Austin’s best chefs and dining concepts are operating out of trailers— often in grueling, physically demanding confines. So, pony up a minimum 15 percent

Takeout

You might see a Styrofoam box and some added mileage on your odometer. But it takes the staff time and effort to prepare your order. Consider leaving a 10 to 15 percent gratuity.

Coffee

If you can tip $1 a beer, Thunderbird Coffee co-owner Ryan McElroy says, you can certainly do it for that morning latte. For less fussy drinks, you might justify less. But as McElroy points out: “I can guarantee that dollar means a lot more to your barista.”

Cocktail

Don’t tip per drink. Nickel City co-owner Travis Tober says to recognize the entire experience and leave a percentage—25 in most cases.

Wine

Wine bars are often a hybrid situation now.

If you’re sitting down for a full flight, treat it like a bar and tip 20 percent. What about retail? Writer Jessica Dupuy says you can bypass tipping on a quick to-go bottle. But if they’re lending their expertise—say, picking out a few nice selections for a gift—it’s nice to show your appreciation with a 10 percent gratuity.

Brewery

What if I’m taking beer to-go?

Places like St. Elmo Brewing Co. operate more as a counter service spot, so Austin Chronicle beer writer Eric Puga defaults to tipping 20 percent, especially when taking advantage of the facilities and hanging around for a while.

¡Que Vino Mexico!

Our neighbors to the south have become the radical upstarts of the wine world, and now, they’re the toast of restaurants around Austin.

BY CHRIS HUGHES

BETTER KNOWN FOR agave spirits, sotol, and crisp, corn-based lagers, Mexico is also producing some of the most exciting wines anywhere. Elevated by the growing interest in minimal-intervention practices and all things natty, progressive producers around Baja are turning North America’s oldest wine-growing region into its most sought-after. Once largely consumed within their own country, Mexican wines are finally trickling into Texas, and enterprising restaurants are zealously sniffing (and swirling) them out. Here’s what to know.

Top Labels

El Bajio

Baja is where 90 percent of Mexico’s wine hails from, but Querétaro in Central Mexico is its next up-and-coming region. That’s namely due to high-elevation sites like those used by El Bajio to make sparkling wine.

Bichi

For their Tecate-based brand, brothers Noel and Jair Tellez chose a name that translates to “naked”—a fitting description for their more rugged, hands-off approach to winemaking in forgotten heritage vineyards.

La Casa Vieja

Everything is done by hand at this tiny Baja property, right down to the labeling. Many of the vineyards of misión and palomino grapes are more than 120 years old and have never been touched by chemicals.

Grape Varieties

Misión

Also called the mission grape, it was originally planted by Franciscan missionaries in the 17th century. The blackskinned variety can smell like iron, hibiscus, and even mezcal.

Macabeo

One of the triumvirate of Spanish cava varieties, it’s now also being utilized in Mexican sparkling wines. Expect floral notes like jasmine and orange blossom.

Chenin Blanc

Considered the world’s most versatile grape, it can be found in everything from dessert wines to pét-nats. In Mexico, it’s often fermented with skin contact to produce bright, complex orange wines.

Where to Sip

Este

Yes, margaritas go great with Mexican seafood, but manager Celia Pellegrini also likes to pair those aguachiles and swordfish tacos with high-acid whites like those from Vinos Barrigones. esteatx.com

Nixta Taqueria

Co-owner Sara Mardanbigi has probably exposed Austinites to the largest swath of producers, including small-production darlings like Pouya and Casa Jipi. nixta taqueria.com

Aviary Wine & Kitchen

Youthfulness and experimentation are hallmarks of beverage director Alex Bell’s list, and he’s finding it more frequently just across the border. aviarywinekitchen.com

Dream Team

With its growing wealth and a superfan blueprint laid out by its MLS team, is Austin a player for the next “big three” sports franchise?

BY BRYAN C. PARKER

GET READY FOR the arrival of a new major league team in Austin. No, you can’t keep them (at least not yet), but the San Antonio Spurs will make the short jaunt north on I-35 for a pair of games on April 6 and 8 at the Moody Center, the flashy new McConaughey-anointed arena located on the UT campus. The Spurs are just visiting this season, but their presence raises an oft-pondered question: Is Austin ready to house a team that can hang with the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Astros of the sports world?

“Unequivocally, yes,” says Ethan Burris, co-director for the Business of Sports Institute at UT’s McCombs School. “Austin has the infrastructure, the population, and the media market to cover that.” Currently the 11th largest city in the nation (and expected to surpass 10th place San Jose in the next official tally), the Texas capital is the largest market without an NBA, MLB, or NFL franchise.

The arrival of Austin FC dispelled the long-standing myth that the city was purely a college football territory dominated by the Longhorns. Even on a

night when UT played a home game in mid-September, Austin FC’s Q2 stadium saw a sellout crowd of 20,738, a feat managed for all 34 home matches in its first two seasons. With major companies like Amazon, Samsung, and Apple opening offices in Austin, the populace includes an increasing number of transplants who don’t bleed burnt orange. And said companies are just the type of customer to buy up premium seats and corporate boxes for employees and clients. Plus, a handful of regionally grown brands like YETI, Tito’s, VRBO, and H-E-B (recently named the sixth largest private company in the country) could deliver ample sponsorship dollars.

From that vantage point, it seems obvious that another major league franchise would want to test the capital city waters—although executing that proves more difficult than expected, Burris says. Acquiring a new team would depend on league-wide expansion or relocation of an existing franchise. There’s also the question of viable real estate and the funding for another, even more sizable stadium.

PLAYING THE FIELD

Courting a major league franchise means steep costs… and even bigger rewards.

$420+ million

Average annual revenue for a big-three sports franchise.

$25 million

Estimated annual economic activity from Austin FC in food and drink sales and hotel stays.

+750

The odds of Austin landing an MLB expansion franchise, according to bookies. com (good for seventh best behind Montreal).

$1.2 billion

Cost to build the Rangers’ Globe Life Park, the most recent MLB stadium.

50 acres

Approximate land needed to construct an NFL stadium.

The San Antonio Spurs hope to capture the Austin audience with games at Moody Center.

A baseball team might be the most feasible option, as the MLB has several franchises that perennially struggle with low attendance in outdated stadiums— namely, Oakland and Tampa Bay. However, Austin might be a hard sell given the recent success of the Astros, and its strong following within city limits.

The NFL seems to have its expansion sights set on international markets like England and Mexico over anywhere domestic. And although the NBA is currently considering other markets, the Spurs actually own Austin’s territory rights, which would prevent any team from settling here. Even disregarding that insurmountable hurdle, Seattle and Las Vegas appear to have the edge over another Texas team, with Nevada preemptively solving the stadium piece of this complex, exorbitantly priced puzzle.

Last spring, news broke that entertainment company Oak View Group has acquired land for the construction of a $3 billion sports district that includes a 20,000seat arena. Within the announcement, the company casually mentioned it would be available should any NBA team just so happen to need a venue. (If the developer’s name sounds familiar, it’s because they’re the same group behind Austin’s Moody Center.)

Barring a bold Hail Mary, like what Oak View Group is doing to lure a franchise to Sin City, it may take a local with deep pockets to shake things up. “Look at the really successful entrepreneurs and business owners in Austin. See if they have an affiliation to sports and if they start inquiring about new ownership,” Burris explains, with a not-so-subtle nod to the city’s growing billionaire contingent.

Ultimately, it seems unlikely that a big-three franchise will call Austin home anytime in the next decade. For leagues that collectively rake in over $35 billion a year, Austin’s booming populace and its influx of tech dollars promise yet another lucrative revenue stream. But with limited entry points, they face a massive missed opportunity, all without ever taking a swing. But it’s this situation that the Spurs hope to capitalize on.

“We truly want to be Austin’s NBA team,” says Brandon James, vice president of strategic growth for the Spurs. “A big portion of Austin is sports agnostic, which is unique for a city this size.” To be clear, James says the Spurs won’t be relocating anytime soon—their contract with their current venue runs through 2030, and the team is currently building a new $500 million practice facility to open next fall. But the Spurs do hope to capture Austin as an audience—buttressing the Spurs’ precipitous decline in home attendance (from 10th out of 30 teams in 2021 to 27th last year).

You can see the team’s bolstered marketing efforts in SXSW panels, appearances by its coyote mascot at ACL Fest, even a shuttle service bussing Austin ticket holders straight to San Antonio’s AT&T Center and back. Assuming this year’s two-game slate goes well, the team is already considering extending their run of games in Austin. And, who knows, maybe that growing flirtation could spark relocation talks in the future.

Things can move quickly when we’re dealing with the whims of the wealthy. Consider recent rumors of Matthew McConaughey’s interest in a stake of the NFL’s Washington Commanders. Could an embattled franchise like Dan Snyder’s much-maligned organization make a fresh start down south? If it’s a layup for small markets like Milwaukee and Memphis to reach peak profitability season after season, surely a city as buzzy and attractive as Austin would be a slam dunk in any arena.

Kirk Watson

Mayor Two-and-a-half decades after a 40-year-old Kirk Watson was sworn in as mayor of Austin, the former Texas senator has returned to the office. An environmental champion and ambitious leader, Watson spearheaded efforts to purchase land to protect the Edwards Aquifer, helped revitalize Austin’s dormant downtown, and oversaw construction of a new international airport in his first stint in the position. Now, he’ll have another shot at molding a changing and more modern capital city, as he eyes familiar problems from the perspective of a seasoned statesman. INTERVIEW BY

BRYAN C. PARKER

What aspects of Austin have and have not changed since you were last mayor?

The last time I was mayor, we were working to manage growth and dealing with issues related to affordability. We created the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, the SMART Housing Program, the first Austin Resource Center for the Homeless. Many of the same challenges were there, so that experience will inform and help. I’m such an optimist on this because most of our big challenges are a result of success. Even those that are not, we get to manage them from a platform of success. We’ve got to quit acting like we’re becoming a big city, and recognize we are a big city. That may be the biggest difference.

This was a competitive race between you and Celia Israel, and the runoff results tell a story of a divided Austin. How will you work to unite the city?

There’s a lot that we agreed on during the campaign. Sometimes when you just look at colors on a map, you can draw greater divisions than there may really be. I may not have won a certain precinct, but it’s a precinct I’ve been representing in one way or another for 20 years. I know the needs, and I respect the needs. I know people are frustrated on everything from affordability to crime to traffic, to how we’re

addressing people experiencing homelessness. They want things shaken up and want it to be done with urgency. And I respect what a lot of voters that voted for my opponent saw as a key message—that this city needs to have better equity. It’s fundamental that we have diversity and inclusivity.

Is the influx of wealth a greater asset or hindrance to the average Austinite?

I think the story’s not completely written on that. It’s time to shift our economic development paradigm. We keep creating jobs, but we need to have a greater focus on getting Austinites into those jobs. There’s two ways to approach affordability: I can make that thing you want to buy cheaper, or I can make sure you have more money in your pocket. By focusing on getting people into those jobs, you make the success beneficial to more people.

How do you plan to address the issues of affordability, housing, and cost of living in the city?

I think we’re in an emergency situation. And when you have an emergency, you react. I want us to “sunset” the development services department, which is a nationally recognized model for going into agencies and telling you what works, what doesn’t work, and our best practices. We ought

to have pop-up permitting. If you’ve got something that deals with the residence, I don’t want you standing in line where you’re blocking the affordable housing folks that are trying to get something built. And for that matter, I don’t want you to have to stand in line behind some big development.

The airport was a major focus when you last held the office. It once again feels woefully undersized for our growing city. What measures should we take to alleviate those issues?

I think we’re about six years behind, and I might be generous when I say that. I believe that Austin city government ought to move at the same speed that virtually everything else seems to be moving in Austin. We need to move with immediacy, with urgency. We ought to set up an entity based on the airport that has all the stuff you’re going to need to move fast—things like permitting. I don’t want us waiting six months to get a permit. It’s us [the city] giving the permit. We’re tripping over our own feet.

As you return to this office, have you reflected on things you wish you could’ve changed in your first stint as mayor?

Sure, I wish I’d done some things differently. For example, I think that I was the first mayor that helped push forward a rail campaign, and it failed by less than 2,000 votes. I can’t imagine how different this town would be today had we started that back in 2000. I think we didn’t provide a specific enough plan. I think that that might have made a difference in that election.

What do you enjoy most about being Austin’s mayor?

I got real sick in my early thirties, and one of the great gifts of cancer was the freedom to do things that I hadn’t done before. One of them ended up being running for mayor of Austin. I absolutely love the ability to have that close of an access to people, their needs, their dreams, and an ability to play a role in helping serve those. I’ve been chair of a state agency, I’ve been a state senator, I’ve been a founding dean of a public policy school. But the best public service job I ever had was this one. And I’m very excited that I get to revisit it.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Living the High Life

A slew of “supertall” structures will soon grace Austin’s skyline, including the tallest building Texas has ever seen. BY

BRYAN C. PARKER

FOR FOUR DECADES, Houston’s JP Morgan Chase Tower stood as the state’s largest building at 1,002 feet. But at least two developments will soon surpass that long-held status. One of those, Wilson Tower, plans to break ground this summer and will not only be among the state’s tallest but also in the top 25 tallest residential towers in the world. Located at 410 East Fifth Street, the project from Wilson Capital and HKS Architects introduces Austin to a new class of “supertall” structures—anything over 300 meters (984 feet). Here, a breakdown of lead architect Brad Wilkins’ plans to meld its urban setting with an outdoorsy lifestyle.

Cocktail Lounge

Grab a drink with fellow tower-dwellers at the 54th floor’s luxurious, residents-only cocktail bar (imagined by Britt Design Group), just a small portion of the roughly 46,000 square feet of indoor common area located throughout the building.

Indoor/Outdoor Pet Floor

Need to get your furry friend some fresh air? You can accomplish that without ever leaving the tower, since the entire 13th floor will be a dedicated dog park.

Fitness Center

Residents can ditch the cost of a gym membership since they’ll have access to a brand new, high-end workout facility on the building’s 12th floor

Rooftop Pool

Wilson Tower has a “podium” that occupies a larger footprint consisting of its first 11 floors, allowing for a rooftop pool that wraps around the south and east facades of the narrow tower.

Sizing

Things Up

Abundant Balconies

With outdoor living areas that range from 60 to 650 square feet, Wilson Tower features balconies on every residential level all the way up to the 79th floor. And that’s not including a 36,000 square feet outdoor common area.

Hill Country–Inspired Design

The high-rise boasts shimmering glass and a copper-colored metal that wraps around the building. Imagine a reflective pool of water in the craggy surface of Enchanted Rock—an image Wilkins pinned to his design inspiration board.

Innovative Brise-Soleil

A brise-soleil (French for “sun breaker”) is an architectural feature such as patterned concrete walls or metal slats that provide shade and “confuse” wind—crucial for supertall buildings that need to endure strong gusts and the scorching Texas sun.

Another HKS-designed high-rise, Waterline, already broke ground at 98 Red River and may be the state’s tallest at 1,022 feet, unless Wilson Tower edges it out by a few feet. The mixed-use building will feature apartments, commercial office space, ground-level retail, and a hotel. Austin is expected to see even more supertall structures in the coming years.

Promised Land

As city council mulls a historic designation for the Broken Spoke, these treasured Austin businesses warrant the same reverence.

BY BRYAN C. PARKER

ON ANY GIVEN night, South Austin’s quintessential two-stepping spot buzzes with Lone Star–swilling patrons donned in boots, a persistent remnant of the spirit that birthed the Live Music Capital. Too many beloved establishments have given way to a decades-long growth spurt, but city efforts for rezoning could ensure that the Broken Spoke remains thriving. Like similarly protected sites such as The Driskill and Scholz Garten, the Spoke’s historic status would yield property tax incentives and shield it from exterior changes without city approval. Here are four other icons we’d like to see safeguarded.

The Tavern

Founded initially in 1916 as a grocery store, this North Lamar spot turned into a front for a hidden bar, casino, and brothel during Prohibition. One of the first establishments to boast air-conditioning in town, it remains one of Austin’s best places to grab a cold one more than a century later. That ingrained legacy is why you can still catch state legislators kicking back after a long evening at the nearby Capitol.

Stubb’s

Live Nation’s 2022 acquisition of this Red River Cultural District hub lends some stability to the live music venue, but these hallowed limestone walls stretch back to the 1850s. With Stubb’s now beset on all sides by condos and hotels, designating the block as a historic zone would signal a cultural investment in keeping with the city’s stated ethos.

Texas Chili Parlor

Famed for its fiery namesake chili, this essential Austin restaurant also established a legacy with the Mad Dog Margaritas that inspired songwriting legend Guy Clark on his song “Dublin Blues.” If that’s not enough grounds for conservation, consider that the Bartholomew-Robinson building next door (built in the 1880s) already has historic zoning status, which should make it easier to stretch that protection just a half block further.

Lamme’s Candies

Established in 1885, Lamme’s actually had two other Austin locations before its recognizable redand-white building on Airport Boulevard. But that doesn’t make it any less vital to the fabric of the capital city’s homegrown businesses. Its North Austin facilities serve not only as a storefront but also as the manufacturing hub for much of the brand’s delectable sweets, such as their chewy pecan pralines and creamy fudge.

BRYAN

C. PARKER

HIGHER EDUCATION

A guide to the best schools, colleges, and universities in Texas

Smash hits, steakhouse showpieces, and hearth-fired patties done the pitmaster way. Here, 35 reasons why Austin now stacks up as the burger capital.

by Jessica At tie

By Chris Hughes

Photographs

Odd Duck chef Bryce Gilmore pushes the limits with ingredients like birria jam and beer cheese.

RECIPE FOR SUCCESS

Mo Pittle, JewBoy Burgers

I’ll die on this sword: You cannot use frozen ground beef. Once you grind anything, moisture is released, which gets sucked up in the freezer. After it’s thawed, the meat just doesn’t taste right, and the texture is always off.

DAVID G LOYOLA

Casino El Camino

Show up hungry, because the only thing more notorious here than its protracted wait time is the jawdropping size (literally) of this behemoth. It doesn’t matter that the beef alone clocks in at 12 ounces—owner Paul Eighmey dials up everything louder than the metal soundtrack behind the bar, with Guinness- and sherry-sauteed mushrooms, blazing house Buffalo sauce, and enough cheese to cure a rowdy night on Dirty Sixth. casino elcamino.net

Crown & Anchor Pub

No preciousness when it comes to plating or sourcing. Bougie butchering skills can be checked at the door. Sometimes the savory, succulent whole exceeds any singled-out attribute. It’s safe to say there would be no Bad Larry or Gimme Burger if not for this well-seasoned patty adorned with fresh LTO. Ask any industry insider, and they’ll tell you: It’s the burger that bred a thousand dedicated converts. crownand anchorpub.com

Dirty Martin’s Place

Odds are, if you attended UT any time in the last—oh, century— you’ve nursed a few hangovers here. Just as seasoned as the ancient flattop are the cooks working it, like Valentin Franco, who’s been there pounding out ground beef on concrete tiles for 25 years. That’s all to say, your O.T. Special tastes as familiar and delectable as ever— even if you did show some restraint the night before. dirtymartins.com

Top Notch Hamburgers

Nowadays, you can get that double-meat Longhorn Special on a gluten-free bun, but since Ray and Frances Stanish passed the torch to the same ownership group behind Galaxy Cafe in 2010, that’s about the only thing that’s changed at Austin’s most beloved drive-in. Sure, you can peek inside at its original Dazed and Confused memorabilia, but why not have some onion rings and that singular charcoal-grilled flavor delivered via carhop? It’d be a lot cooler if you did. topnotchaustin.com

Top Notch’s burgers have been famous well before their star turn in Dazed and Confused.

SMASHED

Better Half Coffee & Cocktails

On weekdays between 3 and 6 p.m., Better Half turns into an all-out burger bash, as those in-the-know take advantage of the sweetest happy hour deal in town: K&C Cattle Co. prime beef, velvety bibb lettuce, a Duke’s-based dijonnaise, melty American cheese, and pastry chef Lindsay O’Rourke’s house-baked pain de mie—all for a paltry six bucks. betterhalf bar.com

La Plancha

Growing up in Brownsville, chef Mariha Hinojosa said the Bimbo buns at her local grocery store were pricier than the bolillo rolls her grandparents brought over from a bakery in Mexico. So, her family turned everything into a torta, including burgers. At her spot on East MLK, she celebrates that innovation right down to the refried beans, ham, and cheddar, seared face down on the plancha. planchaatx.com

Bad Larry Burger Club

Ever self-effacing, Bad Larry ringleader Matthew Bolick likes to say he simply ripped off the recipe for his phenom pop-up from internet videos of LA’s Burgers Never Say Die. Whatever the source for his brand of crackly, ketchupoozing “flattened meat sandwiches,” it’s proven wildly popular across the state, with his beefy bacchanal now taking to the road and touring as far away as Marfa. badlarryburgerclub.club

Carpenters Hall

In his own words, executive chef Thomas Malz says he’s perpetually striving for a burger “that triggers that ‘OMG bite.’” His master plan: a toothsome chili-cut grind of Texas beef that’s browned with cold cubes of butter, then steamed under a cloche to melt a cap of smoked cheddar and American cheese. You say it’s impossible to see a line of pink on a smash burger? Not with Malz’s flawless technique. carpenterhotel.com

Frazier’s Long & Low Tasked with developing a menu to

Chasing a “holy grail” burger, Carpenters Hall constantly tests out new local beef purveyors.

battle a dive bar buzz, Vincent Perry looked no further than the Golden Arches. Creating a churched-up version of those nostalgic little cheeseburgers, Frazier’s crew uses a high fat–content beef (almost 30 percent!) that cooks in its own tallow. Afterward, they’re sandwiched on a steamed bun with micro-diced white onion, ketchup, and mustard straight out of the Mickey D’s playbook. fraziersbar.com

Gimme Burger

At his trailer at Butler Pitch & Putt, chef Michael Fojtasek delves into his fondest burger joint memories. For example, fried okra like the kind he used to order at the dearly departed Players on West Campus. Then there’s the yellow mustard–heavy burger itself, stirred from recollections of a childhood spent inside Jack’s Burger House in Dallas. But the Olamaie chef is sure to make memories of his own, as he elevates his homage with Ranger Cattle wagyu from one of Texas’ premier beef producers. instagram.com/thatsagimme burger

Pool Burger

Given its vicinity to Deep Eddy, MML Hospitality’s burger stand looks to capture the ambience of a boozy pool party. Mission accomplished: as the grass skirt decor and sunscreen bouquet are just as prominent as the aromas emanating from its on-site Airstream cooking up wagyu burgers in inventive combinations like blue cheese and pineapple. poolburger.com

RECIPE FOR SUCCESS

Michael Fojtasek, Gimme Burger Cheese is not an effective anchor, so structurally you have to put lettuce and any other veg on the bottom [below the patty]—otherwise, everything starts sliding around. Plus, it helps avoid the ever-disappointing soggy bottom bun.

Gimme Burger creates smash patties fit to a tee outside Butler Pitch & Putt.

Golden Tiger

When Stephen Kaste and Jamee Miller launched their trend-setting food truck on Rainey Street in early 2018, it was simply out of a hankering for a West Coast–style smash burger, which was virtually nonexistent in the capital city at the time. Now they’re considered the OGs of the category, with multiple locations serving their smoky interpretation that’s smeared with a distinctive chipotle Thousand Island. goldentigeratx.com

Holdout Brewing

Beef, chicken, and even fish were well represented on his brewpub menu, but chef Rich Reimbolt was having a hell of a time sneaking in swine somewhere. What he landed on was a 50/50 burger blend that incorporated pork with local pasture-raised angus. The sweeter, more delicate meat is treated like a pork bao, with salted cucumbers, burnt onion bacon jam, and added umami from a fried egg mayo (essentially emulsified sunny-side eggs). holdoutbrewing.com

Huckleberry

Chef Davis Turner says his love of cooking stems from backyard barbecues and fish frys, which is why you see representatives from both land and sea intermingling on his stellar menu behind Still Austin Whiskey Co. Equal efforts also go into sourcing, with the freshest black drum and Gulf shrimp matched only by Deen & Peeler premium angus squished between Slow Dough Bread Co. challah buns trucked in daily from Houston. huckleberrytx.com

JewBoy Burgers

As JewBoy owner Mo Pittle is quick to point out, salt is a desiccant. And, by nature, smash burgers lose moisture in their titular cooking method. So, to preserve the juiciness of his red angus patties, he seasons instead with sauteed onion and green chiles—a Mexican culinary approach he picked up in his hometown of El Paso. His Jewish West Texas background presents itself in more conspicuous ways as well, with latkes, queso, and house-made salsas crowning some of the most eclectic burgers in town. jewboyburgers.com

Kinda Tropical

Once a part of Matt Bolick’s roving

posse at Bad Larry Burger Club, chef James Durham brings similar sensibilities to the sizzle-and-smash medium, with double patties of all-natural, grass-fed beef saturated in white American cheese. To capture the summerlike vibes of his new digs, he then gives it a tropical touch courtesy of lightly roasted pineapple lazing beneath a blanket of kewpie mayo and red onion. kindatropical.com

Sour Duck Market

From the seasonal pickles (e.g., green tomatoes and Kirby cukes) to the fluffy challah and griddled Peeler Farms wagyu, everything on this burger is hand-forged and highly curated. Yes, even the requisite ketchup, mayo, and

mustard in its “secret sauce” is made in-house by Bryce Gilmore’s team of chefs: “We’re not just opening cans and mixing them together over here,” he says. sourduckmarket.com

Spread & Co.

At a cafe better known for grazing boards, it should not come as a surprise that cheese is the focus here: nutty, gooey raclette and a 5-year-aged cheddar dripping past the crackly lacing of two 44 Farms black angus patties. Tying the whole thing together is a housebaked brioche bun and “fancy sauce” (ketchup + mayo), a cheeky nod to Will Ferrell’s preferred chicken nugget condiment in Step Brothers spreadandco.com

Kinda Tropical encourages guests to get “frisky” with add-ons like roasted pineapple and housemade kimchi.

Plant Hardly Wait

All the meatless proteins, secret sauces, and even insider ordering tips to make the most out of the city’s top veggie burgers.

Few restaurants can boast a soy-free, gluten-free, vegan patty—and still have one of the best burgers in town.

Cremini mushrooms, brown rice, and gluten-free panko form the base of a patty seasoned with garlic, onion, parsley, and soy sauce.

Sunny’s starts with an Impossible patty (the superior meat substitute; sorry, Beyond) on a toasted vegan brioche bun. Fired on a flattop griddle, it achieves a textural facsimile of a smash burger.

A brioche bun, sourced from Slow Dough in Houston, adds a delightfully sweet flavor to a patty constructed from lentils, millet, quinoa, and portabella mushrooms.

Though it uses black beans, P. Terry’s transcends the banal by combining them with brown rice, cream-simmered creminis, onions, oats, cheddar, and parsley.

Loaded with spicy seitan bac’n, gooey vegan cheese, and an array of condiments, its Bac’n Cheezeburger has become a local classic.

The secret is in the sauce—feta, yogurt, sour cream, lemon juice, and lemon zest—which lends a brightness to otherwise heavy fare.

Built out of an “egg” wash of aquafaba and garbanzo beans, its house-made black garlic aioli makes for an unforgettable accompaniment.

Choose from options like jalapeños, seitan bacon, tangy barbecue sauce, and even onion rings on its wide range of burger combos.

Tap into an abundance of add-ons, including pickles, onions (raw or grilled), and jalapeños. Access off-menu secrets by subbing Swiss or pepper jack for American cheese.

RECIPE FOR SUCCESS

John Bates, Interstellar BBQ

After a night dancing at Cheer Up Charlies, there’s nothing better than an Arlo’s burger and a boat of piping hot tater tots.

Stop by on Mondays for half-price burgers. Pair it with the spicy margarita, served on tap, which uses poblano liqueur, blanco tequila, agave, and lime.

Pub grub has never tasted so good, with fully vegan options like waffle fries topped with Credo Queso and faux spare rib.

Located at The Thicket food truck park, it allows for international mixing and matching, such as gnocchi from Artipasta and mushroom tacos from Un Mundo de Sabor.

Oft criticized for its lackluster fries, they can be bettered by ordering them “crispy” (i.e., double fried).

A key component is a high-heat sear to achieve a full, beefy flavor. Your griddle should be hot enough that you hear an audible sear and fat starts popping and going all over the place as soon as the meat hits the surface.

Arlo’s burger with spicy seitan bac’n.

Fancy

Clark’s Oyster Bar

Sure, you’ve had steak frites, but how about steak frites on a bun?

That’s the culinary equivalent that this Clarksville cafe is aiming for with a medium-rare ball of black angus that’s covered in earthy gruyere and a decadent sauce gribiche studded with capers, potato, pickles, and hard-boiled egg. The accompanying rosemary-flecked matchstick fries are a textural revelation when mounded on top. clarksaustin.com

Dai Due

Chef Jesse Griffiths is certainly a believer in that whole “better with age” bromide. Particularly, aged wagyu ribeye and chuck trim that’s ground down with house-cured bacon. Divided into two 4-ounce patties, he puts them on a ripping hot plancha placed inside of a wood-burning hearth, lending a whisper of smoke that becomes only further pronounced with the addition of his guajillo-enhanced “sauce especial.” daidue.com

Jack Allen’s Kitchen

“Things change and evolve on our menu,” says culinary director Chris TenEyck, “but the burgers are non-negotiable.” It’s not that they’re oblivious to the trends— particularly when it comes to portion sizes—but Jack Allen’s team has more than a decade of market-testing on their side. Since 2009, diners have been clamoring for burgers like their Fat Jack, a towering half-pound specimen loaded with bacon, fried onions, and a fiery jalapeño mayo flush with chipotle peppers, Tabasco, and more. jackallenskitchen.com

Jacoby’s Restaurant & Mercantile

Before he attended UT—and well prior to him becoming one of Austin’s most prolific restaurateurs—Adam Jacoby was working at his family’s eponymous cafe in Melvin, Texas. Best known for its burger, which utilizes dry-aged, pasture-raised black angus from the family ranch, it became the bovine blueprint when Adam opened his own concept in 2014. Imitation might be the sincerest

form of flattery, but the Jacoby scion betters his with aged Deer Creek cheddar, house-brined pickles, and an optional fried egg on top. jacobysaustin.com

Jeffrey’s

Not being able to snag a reservation at MML’s sophisticated steakhouse might just be the best thing to happen to your evening. Foie gras and rack of lamb can wait when there’s a bar-only burger of your dreams: peppery bacon, brandy-soaked French onion aioli, and a dry-aged wagyu patty that’s as decadent as any of its signature cuts drowning in sauce béarnaise. jeffreysofaustin.com

Justine’s

The Royale with Cheese at this brasserie basically started as a gag, with a sizable wad of steak trim churned into a pâté-like slab.

Jammed into a baguette, it was like French satire on a workingman’s meatloaf sandwich. But under the guise of chef Justin Huffman (circa 2021), it’s evolved in spectacular ways. Less is more, as he sears a 44 Farms dry-aged brisket and chuck patty, melts silky Comte cheese over the top, and nestles it all in a ciabatta bun grilled over mesquite and pecan wood. justines1937.com

Salt & Time

When you have an arsenal of Texas’ best cuts lying at your disposal, you don’t really have to overthink a classic. Taking trim from the expanse of its butcher counter, co-owner Ben Runkle and his team meld 8-ounce patties that come simply dressed with discs of sour pickles, some house-whipped mayo, and burly steak fries to sop up any juices you might’ve left behind. saltandtime.com

The chic, baronly burger at Jeffrey’s is the main draw at its all-night happy hour on Mondays.

Duck Dynasty

In the current era of the smashed patty, Bryce Gilmore is ruffling a few feathers with lavish, beltloosening burgers that dare to go big. Very big.

1 If you have sticker shock ($30+), the cost starts here. Gilmore utilizes dry-aged Akaushi wagyu from Beeman Ranch, considered some of the finest beef in the world. Each patty is coarsely ground so all that prized fat doesn’t evaporate on the griddle.

2 “Nixtamalization” is the buzzword of the moment, but the chef has been forging his own masa for years using Barton Springs Mill heirloom corn. Lately, he’s been fashioning it into tostadas to add extra texture to his burger.

With just a brief appearance on his Odd Duck lunch menu, chef Bryce Gilmore’s take on a classic sealed its fate. Named Top Burger in the city by the Statesman in 2016, it instantly became the most in-demand item at the James Beard Award nominee’s hyper-seasonal restaurant—so much so that it made diners irate whenever he dared take it off the specials board. Now a staple at the South Lamar spot, the dish has become a personal challenge to constantly go more adventurous with each passing iteration. “If I’m going to make a burger, I’m going to at least try and go all out, putting crazy things no one would ever think to put on one,” he says. Here, everything on his latest elaborate creation.

3 Odd Duck always adds a swine-centric element to the dish, whether it’s pork belly or spirals of chicharrones. Currently, they’re slathering on a birria jam consisting of pulled pork trim, three types of chiles, garlic, onion, brown sugar, and spices.

4 The intense flavor of the beef allows for the interplay of bolder ingredients on top, like this funky, gooey beer cheese made from Deep Ellum blue and creamy Oaxaca whisked into a local lager.

5 To balance all that meaty richness, Gilmore layers on smoke and acid courtesy of an oak-charred cabbage slaw that’s tossed with pickled onion, lime, and cilantro.

Smoked

Interstellar BBQ

“I’ve never been accused of doing things the easy way,” says pitmaster John Bates. Nowhere has that been more apparent than on his burger-fied Rachel sandwich, in which he cures and smokes whole pastramis that are ground down into patties. Seared to-order, each melt-in-your mouth bite is dressed with griddled onions, bread and butter pickles, Swiss cheese, and a layer of Russian dressing. theinter stellarbbq.com

LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue

Successful pitmasters are nothing if not frugal—particularly with the ever-skyrocketing cost of brisket. Evan LeRoy was one of the first to see the potential in all that trim that doesn’t go on your tray. Instead, he bound it with ground, Texas-raised Akaushi beef that’s smoked for 45 minutes in a flattop wedged into his fire box, then served with beet barbecue sauce, mayo, and onions grilled in all the leftover fat. leroyandlewisbbq.com

Loro

Barbecue… as condiment? That’s

what you have at Aaron Franklin and Tyson Cole’s Asian smokehouse, where you get a one-two campfire punch from a burger that’s cold-smoked and blistered over an open-hearth flame, then sheathed in a tangy chopped brisket jam sweetened with Chinese vinegar, sugar, and Shaoxing wine. loroeats.com

Moreno Barbecue

With such a wealth of barbecue options in Central Texas, inevitably, there’s going to be some overlooked outliers, which is Bo Moreno’s South Austin joint in a nutshell. Granted, in smoked meat circles he might be dinged for not offering his own sausage, but all that time and trim that would

otherwise be reserved for a tube is spent on one of the most outstanding burgers: a half-pound of ground brisket cradled in a squishy New World Bakery brioche bun with a have-it-your-way selection of toppings—just don’t skip the griddled jalapeños. morenobbq.com

Valentina’s Tex Mex BBQ

A special so good it became its own restaurant (Cash Cow Burgers in Buda). Taking the lessons learned as the former burger maestro at Ranch 616, Miguel Vidal smothers and stuffs his mesquite-smoked patties with everything from Boursin cheese and caramelized tomatoes to brisket guisada drowning in queso blanco. valentinas texmexbbq.com

RECIPE FOR SUCCESS

because it adds so much wetness. I personally skip lettuce too. As far as green things go, you already have the crunch from pickles—a necessity—so now you’re just getting greedy.

Matthew Bolick, Bad Larry Burger Club

A really good way to f*ck up your burger is to put a big thick cut of tomato on top,

Sweetened chunks of Aaron Franklin’s famous brisket top the namesake burger at Loro.

Chop it Like it’s Hot

One expert finds the burger mother lode in the most surprising spot: the Mexican machete truck. BY ALI KHAN

IF MEXICO CAN give the gift of tacos to the US, can’t we return the favor? Turns out we already have. Hamburgers, that great American food icon, are in fact a popular culinary item with our neighbor to the south. More specifically, Mexico City has added burgers to their long list of dishes to try when traveling to the dining destination. While the city delivers an array of styles, the ones that strike me as an earnest and genuine interpretation mingle the flavors of torta cookery onto the burger canvas.

Not surprisingly, that technique has made its way across the border in places like San Angelo, and even Austin. In the former, they’re usually confined to mom-and-pop Tex-Mex restaurants, whereas here in the capital city, it’s Mexican food trailers that specialize in machetes.

The giant, blade-shaped quesadillas stuffed with the likes of carnitas and squash blossoms seem to have originated in Mexico City, with sightings dating back as far back as the 1960s. Perhaps that’s why burgers also appear on the menus of practitioners like Aparicio’s and Casita Nicole Antojitos in South Austin, as the dish has become a late-night phenomenon in the Mexican capital. Maybe a true Chilango (one who hails from CDMX) who finds themselves across the border can’t help but serve one without the other.

At Casita Nicole Antojitos, they specialize in heavyweight, kitchen-sink kind of burgers that bask in excess: jalapeños, serranos, bacon, white American cheese, mushrooms, jalapeño ranch, and the most mayo I have ever had in one sitting. There are even ones with hot dogs and pineapple on top. That could explain why it’s become an underground favorite with the Reddit crowd. The price can’t be ignored either, as $9 will get you one of these loaded behemoths with a sack of fries to boot.

Strangely, the patty itself at some of these machete trucks is far from exemplary, but the harmony of all the toppings makes for one hell of a burger experience. A rich, salty, spicy uppercut to your palate, it’s hard not to be wowed by the sum of its parts. Not to be overlooked is the oversized bun, which is not only large enough to keep it all from falling apart, but double toasted on the top and bottom like a Telera roll.

At the end of the day, a great burger doesn’t demand fancy flourishes. Sometimes a preformed burger patty can do the trick if it’s adorned well, like the construction of a great East Coast Italian sub. After trying a number of these machete side hustles, I tend to agree with the local Redditors who are scaling new heights and scratching that burger itch outside the typical settings. Yes, you are going to

find some of the best examples in the place you least expect it. But again, why the machete truck? When I asked Casita Nicole owner Ivonne Vizuet the reason behind the trend, her retort was short and succinct—the opposite of her gastronomic dealings.

“You think about Mexican food and you think enchiladas,” she says. “But burgers are Mexican too. The way we do them is authentically Mexican.” I certainly can’t argue with that.

Ali Khan is the burger editor at Texas Highways magazine and a judge on the new Food Network show NFL Tailgate Takedown. He is also the host of Cheap Eats on Cooking Channel, and he regularly works with the James Beard Foundation.

DIEGO PATIÑO

The (mostly) true story of the

Hole in the Wall.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JORDAN VONDERHAAR

BY DAN GENTILE

Against all odds,

some dives just refuse to die. If there’s any justice in the world, Hole in the Wall will continue to be one of those bars.

In the nearly 50 years since it opened its doors, the legendary campus-area live music venue has served as the launching pad for some of Austin’s biggest musical acts. Hosting everyone from Nanci Griffith to Spoon to Shakey Graves on its tiny front stage, Hole in the Wall has always been a place for young musicians to cut their teeth, while old-timers like Townes Van Zandt and Doug Sahm quietly—or loudly—sipped beers at the bar.

There might be more tall tales about Hole in the Wall than any other venue in Austin, including perpetual rumors of its demise. Throughout the decades, the bar has shuttered temporarily, changed ownership several times, transformed the kitchen to serve Japanese food, and weathered a global pandemic. But through it all, Hole in the Wall carries on the legacy of intimate concerts, cheap beer, and an endless number of barstool stories that may or may not be true.

Believe it or not, the original concept for Hole in the Wall had nothing to do with music. In 1974, Doug Cugini and his parents opened the space as a restaurant serving truck-stop-style delicacies like chicken-fried steak sandwiches, with a few arcade machines in the back. The location created a perfect storm of artistically minded college students from the neighboring UT film and journalism schools, plus older university staff, who mixed with cosmic cowboy guitarists busking along The Drag and a growing population of slackers looking for a stage.

The Hole evolved along much the same trajectory as the city of Austin—it began as a place for dusty songwriters, then became a home for rock ‘n’ roll iconoclasts and country western punks. MTV came to town and made stars out of Hole in the Wall alt-rockers like Timbuk3 in the ’80s, then alternative radio stations helped Fastball go platinum, just a few years after they played their first show at the diminutive campus dive.

And just like that, it almost all fell apart. In 1998, Cugini officially handed the business off to two of his longtime managers, Debbie Rombach and Jeff Smith. When the building’s owner put it on the market for $975,000 in 2002, the business closed for a year before landing in the hands of Austin’s Pizza associates for a couple years, then eventually passed to Long Play Lounge co-owner Will Tanner in 2008. It also shut down for seven months due to the coronavirus pandemic, reopening in late October 2020. The bar has been operating with a fraction of its staff ever since.

To tell the story of the venue, we spoke with 20 of the former owners, bartenders, musicians, and regulars who shared their memories of what makes the Hole such an Austin original—and what the city would lose should it ever shutter.

THE BIRTH OF A LEGEND

Doug Cugini, original owner: My mom and dad and I did a handshake agreement with the landlord, Gus Eifler, in 1974 and started working on it in the spring of ’74. [We] opened up on June 15. I was 23 years old.

Debbie Rombach, booker and former owner: The first time I went was the day the bar opened. I was at UT orientation. We were supposed to go to a thing about dorm life, and instead, we walked across the parking lot to the Hole in the Wall. The very first day they had five-cent draft beers and 25-cent shots of tequila.

Cugini: The timing was so unique. In [the early 1970s], they passed the Texas Alcoholic Beverage

Commission law. We were one of the first businesses in Travis County that could serve liquor and mixed drinks. There were some neighborhood bars, but they only served beer and wine, places like Deep Eddy, which is still there. But they weren’t, you know, legal. We were kind of setting up the traditions of how that stuff works.

Rombach: The drinking age was 18. So, a bunch of us college kids went there. At the time, it still had all these pictures of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid up there, because that’s what it’s named after.

Cugini: I was kind of naive. I was from Western New York, and Texas was like the Old West to me—basically, the Hole in the Wall Gang from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. We had four

photos of those gangsters up on the wall, and that was it. And, you know, the staff walked around in T-shirts with them on it, but that didn’t last very long.

Michael Hall, executive editor at Texas Monthly, musician in Wild Seeds: I started at UT in ’76, and I don’t think I learned about the Hole until ’77 or ’78. I started going there to play video games actually. Galaxian was my favorite video game, and the Hole had the only Galaxian game near campus.

Cugini: I would say 80 percent of my profit was made from the back room that used to be an arcade. We had five or six pool tables, 12 pinball machines, foosball tables, a jukebox, all this stuff.

In 1974, Doug Cugini and his family opened Hole in the Wall as a restaurant— not a live music joint.

BOOZE, BRAWLS & BANDS BEHAVING BADLY

Hall: Sometimes I’d walk out and somebody was playing music. I wasn’t that into the music at the time; it was all about video games. I would just sit there and play until I ran out of quarters. The other thing about the Hole was the food.

Cugini: The first five or six years I was there, we were a restaurant. My parents and I owned two truck stop cafes, one on Ben White and one at 183 and I-35.

Jeff Smith, bartender, former owner, musician in the Hickoids: I believe the Hole in the Wall was the first place in Texas to serve Buffalo wings, because the Cuginis were from Buffalo.

Brooks Brannon, former manager, musician: There would be two waitresses and a hostess. And Mrs. C would sit up at the bar and drink wine out of a plastic tea glass. There was a lunch special, and it sold out pretty much every day, no matter what it was. Whether it was beef tips and rice, fried chicken, or the Reality.

Hall: They had the Reality sandwich, which I just loved when I was 21 years old. It was basically a chicken-fried steak with jalapeños and gravy. It was just horrible for you, but I loved it.

Brannon: The reason why it was called The Reality is because the guy that requested it would come in after a night of drinking, and it brought him back to reality.

SETTING THE STAGE

Cugini: Musicians on The Drag would come in and ask to play. I hesitated at first, but after a couple of months, I started letting them play for tips. After about six months, we had five or six nights of music.

Brannon: I played there the first time in the summer of ’76 with the Bourbon Brothers. My buddy and me were playing a happy hour at this disco behind the Hole in the Wall. Doug came over and said the people scheduled to play weren’t gonna make it and asked us. We said ‘How much?’ He said $35. ‘OK, we’ll do it.’

Hall: I started going to music more in ’79 or ’80. I started hanging out there and Raul’s. Those were the two university-area clubs. Raul’s was all punk and hard rock bands. The Hole at that time was pretty much singer-songwriters. It was mostly guys that were kind of like Townes Van Zandt wannabes: Blaze Foley, George Ensle. It was a folky kind of scene; it wasn’t a rock ‘n’ roll scene yet.

Cugini: When we first started out, it was single acoustic acts or duos. Our stage at the time was on a 1-by-12 frame. So basically one guy could stand on it. The first person who straightened me out professionally was Nanci Griffith. She was the one who suggested putting musicians’ names up on the marquee outside—we had always put our food specials out there.

Alejandro Escovedo, musician: It still has the same marquee that it always had. They would place the names of the bands that were playing and the time on a little chalkboard. There was a large window behind the stage. It felt like you were playing in a storefront almost.

Brannon: The door has a bat as a handle. But that wasn’t the original bat: The original bat was taken off because they were afraid someone was going to steal it. Because it was a Roberto Clemente bat. They were baseball freaks in the early days.

Jim Eno, musician in Spoon: The stage was right at the front door with that huge window. I used to play drums there [in the mid-’90s], and people would always be out walking by the window. You’d have to load your sh*t in through the front door and find a place for it, and people are trying to get in, and you’re interacting with fans.

Colin Johnson, former doorman: As far as live music goes, it’s unmatched in most ways, for closeness to the artists. For surprise, intimate shows, I’d say it’s almost unrivaled in the city.

V. Marc Fort, former Austin American-Statesman music writer, musician in Schatzi: It could be thought of as a perfect listening room. But that’s if listening rooms were rowdy, beer-fueled house parties. I can’t remember a quiet set I’ve heard at Hole in the Wall.

Hall: I’d been in the Hole in the Wall so many times where some singer-songwriter got up there and got pissed off because people wouldn’t shut up while he was playing. ‘Hey, man, you know, this is a sensitive song.’ People, of course, would just go ‘f*ck you.’

Timbuk3 was one of many breakout artists that got its start performing at the venue in the ’80s.

Pat MacDonald, musician in Timbuk3: [In the mid-’80s], we got up to play and we were like, ‘Hey, are you gonna turn off the TV?’ And they were like, ‘No, we don’t turn off the TV. It stays on.’ After we were regulars there, we were the first band that got them to turn off the TV.

FINDING ITS GROOVE

Cugini: The Austin American-Statesman had a little blurb on their front page called Best Bets where they would list the music for that night. We were one of the only music venues in town that had music every night, so we were literally on the front page of the Statesman, for free, every day for about 10 years [in the late ’70s and early ’80s].

Hall: Music scenes need places. They need a place where people really want to go. They need bands, of course, they need people, but they need places. The Hole in the Wall was a place for so many different kinds of scenes, like the ’70s singer-songwriter scene. You’d go there and see Townes just drinking at the bar.

Brannon: I turned around one day, and there’s Townes Van Zandt. I said godd*mn, what are you doing here? He said, ‘I’ve got a show across the street [at Austin City Limits], give me a gin and tonic.’

Paul Minor, musician in Texas Tycoons, Beaver Nelson, Paul Minor & the Superego All-stars: In the mid-’80s, they were a destination for roots rock. One of the bands that was super popular was the Commandos. Also, Evan Johns and the H Bombs. The Wagoneers…. Then the Leroy Brothers. There was a late ’80s movement in Austin that was kind of documented on MTV on The Cutting Edge. Timbuk3 was a major breakthrough; they were definitely alternative.

MacDonald: The Hole in the Wall seemed to be the headquarters for the budding cowpunk era. That was happening when we first moved there [in 1983], and it was one of my favorite parts of the Austin scene. It was the Hickoids, that whole punk side of alt country. With Alejandro Escovedo and Rank and File.

Cugini: Joe King Carrasco, on a Thursday night he was playing at the Hole, on Friday night he was playing on The Tonight Show

Andy Langer, journalist and radio deejay: Sixth Street in the early ’90s was designed so you could go see five distinct shows a night, whether it was at Babes, the Black Cat, Steamboat. Mercado, later Flamingo, and Emo’s. The one-stop shopping aspect of Sixth Street had its own ups and downs…  rent was verging on what at the time felt ridiculous. Back then the destination venues like Hole in the Wall seemed to be doing or holding their own the best because they didn’t have to worry about that.

Aly Gomaa, current booker: A lot of people know you’ll have a friend at Hole in the Wall if you’re starting a new band, because it’s where people generally start up.

Minor: In ’94, I started hosting the Rock ‘n’ Roll Free for All. There were four or five bands every Sunday, and a lot of them were playing their first show. It was a launching pad and an incubator. It went on until 2002 when the club closed.

Langer: I was doing a four-hour radio show on 101X on Sunday nights called “The Next Big Thing.” It was nothing but new and local music. I’d leave the station and go to the Hole in the Wall for Paul Minor’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Free for All. Those were sort of the sweet spot hours for whoever was his guest of the moment. Whether it was Fastball, Spoon, Prescott Curlywolf, or Li’l Cap’n Travis.

Beaver Nelson, musician: It didn’t matter the genre, a lot of the people were playing from different genres in the same club. The Hole in the Wall, if it wasn’t where you were going, it was definitely where you ended up. It was still the tail end of everybody being able to know everybody.

Rombach: I was booking the bar from ’89 to 2002. Everybody was so scared I was gonna bring in all punk rock and heavy metal. For one, I didn’t listen to metal at that time. I slowly but surely started working people like the Pocket FishRmen in.

Conrad Keely, musician in ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead: I remember bands like Pocket FishRmen played there a lot [in the mid’90s]. But one of the most common bands to play there was Spoon—they were in constant rotation at Hole in the Wall. We weren’t because we pretty much got banned after our first show. I didn’t play again until years and years later.

Langer: Spoon was perfect for that room because Britt was still just playing an acoustic guitar. It was through all kinds of effects, but it never overpowered the room. They were very Pixie-esque. Almost from the jump, the band just kept getting better and the audience kept getting bigger.

Eno: It was one of our home bases, we played there so many times. It was a place where we could hone our live show, work on new recorded material, and play in front of new fans. It was pretty essential to our career and to our development as a band.

Austin Leos, current manager: If you look at some of those old booking schedules, Explosions in the Sky is on a Tuesday night [in 2002]. I remember seeing Shakey Graves play on happy hour on the front stage. Alejandro was hitting the suitcase and playing that first record before he got discovered.

Will Tanner, current owner: I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of things that moved me there. Watching Shakey Graves evolve was amazing. He just sold out Red Rocks three nights in a row.

It was like the place that time would not change.

Rombach: They’d start out playing at our place, then they’d get their crowd, and then they’d be too big. It made me sad, but at the same time, that was what I always hoped for.

Gomaa: When you think of bands like Shakey Graves, and Spoon, and Timbuk3. Even before that with Blaze Foley and Townes Van Zandt. I think about who we’re giving the stage to now, and how are they going to be a continuation of that legacy. There’s so much talent in Austin that the next Spoon is gonna get started a block down the street in a West Campus apartment.

TALL TALES

Nelson: The joke is, there are more people that say they were at a particular show than could’ve fit in 25 Hole in the Walls. But I was there the night Don Henley got up to play with Mojo Nixon [in 1992].

Rombach: It wasn’t Don’s first night there; he’d been in before.

Nelson: The place is absolutely packed, it was beyond packed. People were sitting on the bar. It was a madhouse. There’s a hooded figure working his way through the crowd…

Minor: He walked in the door just when Mojo Nixon was playing the song “Don Henley Must Die.”

Nelson: He throws the hood back and jumps up on stage. And Don started singing gang vocals [along with Mojo]: “Don Henley must die! Don’t let him get back together with Glenn Frey!” And then Don just immediately jumped off the stage and out the front door, and a cab is just waiting.

Rombach: If anybody ever tells you that Janis Joplin played there, no, she did not. Because she died before it opened. There was a place right next door called Hank’s Grill, and she did play there.

Brannon: One day the phone rings, I answer the phone. This lady says she’s a photographer from New York City wondering if she could shoot Sheryl Crow in the game room. She was doing a picture book of artists and their pets. She brought her dog, and I didn’t see none of it! I was just working away, oblivious to what was going on except for who needs a beer.

Nelson: I proposed to my wife there. I was playing a song called “Playing for Keeps,” and I stepped off stage, and she was sitting at that corner of the bar on a stool, right next to her dad. The band kept playing, and I got down on one knee. She said yes, and I hopped back up and finished the show.

Brannon: Pootie, who worked for Willie, came in and set a guitar case on the bar and said, “Brooks, see if you can tune it.” I open it up, and it’s Trigger. I wound up tuning it three days in a row before Willie walked on stage with it at Austin City Limits, which was across the street at the time.

Rombach: When Nick Lowe was producing the Fabulous Thunderbirds [in the early ’80s], he came in and sat in with Teddy and the Tall Tops. Los Lobos has come in and sat in with them. One night the guys from R.E.M. came. Matt McConaughey would come in, Richard Linklater came in quite a bit with Ethan Hawke to play pool.

Brannon: When they got done shooting Blaze [in 2017], Ethan Hawke and the actor who played Blaze Foley [Ben Dickey] showed up here. And it was just them in the bar for a couple hours. At that point, anyone who did show up wouldn’t recognize them anyway, they were just there to have their beer and sit and reflect.

MacDonald: One night, this big group of people all brought their sunglasses. We played “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades,” which wasn’t a hit yet. Everybody put on their sunglasses and snake-danced around the room. It was just the Hole in the Wall being the Hole in the Wall.

Keely: It felt pretty innocent at the time. You’d think that’s a silly reason to ban a band. All we did was step off the stage onto the tables in the front row, then proceeded to walk across the tables and a candle got knocked off and wax spilled on the floor. That was the reason for [Trail of Dead] being banned [in 1995]. We didn’t smash anything. We probably did throw our drum set around at the end of the show, but we couldn’t afford to smash our gear at the time.

Brannon: One afternoon [in 1988], Leonard Cohen is across the street at Austin City Limits, he walks in with a buddy. Squid [the cook] comes out of the kitchen. ‘Oh, Mr. Cohen, I just want to say…’ Then one of them knocked over the trash can. So, Squid and Leonard Cohen squat down and are picking the trash up off the floor.

MacDonald: We found out that the Blaze had been banned from the Hole in the Wall. We wouldn’t play a reunion show unless Blaze could open for us, so we got him readmitted [in 1988].

Rombach: Townes Van Zandt played one night and not a person said a word, everybody just listened. That was sometime in the late ’80s, a couple years before he died.

Gomaa: I’m in this Uber headed to Hole in the Wall and my driver is super excited, she used to go there in the ’90s. She has this crazy story about someone going to the bathroom and locking the door…

Langer: I think most people would tell you the three most cherished and disgusting bathrooms in Austin music were at Liberty Lunch, the trough at Emo’s, and the bathrooms at Hole in the Wall.

Eno: [In 2000] we made a video for the song “Jealousy” off the Love Ways EP [at Hole in the Wall]. The song is a very sad song, so we’re thinking, where would be the most depressing place you could ever think you would ever be… so they’re on the floor of the bathroom at Hole in the Wall.

Mike McCoy, musician in Cher U.K., The Service Industry, and Mike McCoy’s Trompe-l’œil: I don’t know if you’ve heard the story of Courtney Love in the bathroom [in 2002]. I wasn’t there, but I was friends with the guy she was locked in the bathroom with. He’s dead now.

Rombach: I was off that night, I was downtown seeing bands at South by Southwest that I was hoping to book. I heard about it—somebody shouted it to me across the room. She was locked in with a friend of ours…

McCoy: His name was Lawrence and everyone called him Lar-Lar. He was the cocaine dealer.

Gomaa: It’s been like 30 minutes, so naturally she decides to kick the door in after 30 minutes. And apparently Courtney Love is doing drugs, smoking something in the women’s bathroom. And [this Uber driver] is the one who caught it apparently.

WE DRINK ALL WE CAN AND SELL THE REST

Leos: When I first started working here, I was like, this place is crazy, how does it run? On cheap whiskey, I guess.

McCoy: It’s not a place you go to get healthy.

Escovedo: There were all these characters who would just sit at the corner of the bar and always provide the clientele with whatever they might need for that special night.

Smith: Brooks would change the marquee out. One day I said, ‘Hey Brooks, I want you to put up on the marquee: ‘We drink all we can and sell the rest.’” It’s just about the truth.

Cugini: Most of the partying was not necessarily done during working hours.

Smith: Fun was always a prerogative. It was a bit of a playpen sometimes for sure.

Cugini: We used to have wrestling matches in there, you know, 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. We’d take our shirts off and move the tables around. So, you can imagine, it was not exactly a delicate place.

Escovedo: I remember there were nights they would close the doors, and we’d just go to the back room where there were pool tables and pinball machines. We’d just start drinking and telling stories and having fun, bringing out guitars. We knew it was time to leave when we would see the first joggers at daylight come running by the big glass window.

Minor: The Texas drinking age changed [from 19 to 21] when I was 19 [in 1984]. I turned of age twice at the Hole, that was where I was celebrated both times. I had been drinking there underage before that… twice.

McCoy: In our band, there was always the threat of nudity onstage. At the Hole they didn’t care, as long as you kept the police out of it.

Brannon: We had some badasses that were regulars. And [by that] I mean guys that would whoop your ass.

Eno: I remember, probably 10 or 15 years ago, that band Jet was working at my studio. And I went out with them to Hole in the Wall twice. Both times they almost got in a fight.

Cugini: There’s these two guys yelling and screaming, and they’re slapping at each other like they’ve never been in a fight in their whole life. It turns out that they were having a physics disagreement about black holes.

Its “cherished and disgusting” bathroom was featured in Spoon’s video for “Jealousy” in 2000.

BOOZE, BRAWLS & BANDS BEHAVING BADLY

McCoy: There’s the time that Santa went through the front window at Christmas karaoke.

Johnson: Tuesdays were dollar Miller High Life nights [in the early 2000s]. That was always the most troubling night we would have. I had to tell someone they couldn’t come in because they didn’t have an ID, then they came back five minutes later and threw a cinder block through the main window at my head.

Smith: I would bartend on Sundays and be horribly hungover, if not awake from the night before. But every once in a while, to break the monotony, I’d yell out “mai tai madness.” The deal was I’d sell nickel mai tais for five minutes. But usually it’d take me five minutes to find everything it takes to make a mai tai.

Keely: It was actually one of the targets when we had this brief tagging spree. We tagged the outside of it with our name. That was when we were banned, it would’ve been ’95 or ’96.

McCoy: Lucinda Williams got kicked out of there every other weekend [in the ’70s]. She was a Drag queen, meaning she would walk up and down The Drag doing her thing. She had quite a reputation at the Hole. Daniel Johnston played there a lot. I saw Roky [Erickson of 13th Floor Elevators] get kicked out of there one time.

Hall: There were probably 25 people there, and we were playing, and we heard this yelling from the bathrooms. And this woman comes right out of the bathroom, and the other woman is chasing her, and pulling up her pants. The chasee had gone in and found the chaser f*cking some guy on the sink and all hell broke loose.

Fort: A friend was waitressing there at the time, and somehow she got it in her mind that she didn’t like how Dave Grohl and his posse of dude friends were acting that night. And so she ended up pouring a full beer on Dave Grohl.

Rombach: It was very embarrassing, but Dave was very nice about it.

OH SH*T, WE OWN THE HOLE IN THE WALL

Cugini: I owned it for [nearly] 25 years to the day. When I opened it, I was 23 years old, I didn’t know what the hell I was getting into.

Leos: I think they actually celebrated their firstyear anniversary the first day they opened because they didn’t think they were gonna make it a full year.

Cugini: There was no such thing as national businesses on The Drag, it was all locally owned. I did handshake agreements month to month for the first 10 years I was there. I want to say the original rent was $800 a month.

Leos: They kept that going until they gave it to Debbie and Jeff Smith from the Hickoids [in 1998]. And they stayed true to it.

Smith: There’s the joke about the boat owner: What are the two happiest days of a boat owner’s life? The day they buy it, and the day they get rid of it.

Tanner: Debbie and Jeff had it for a couple years, but it’s been the same story—rent, rent, rent. The rent went up, and it’s hard to manage a real dive bar in a boomtown.

Smith: We had a difficult time making money. Things were beginning to inflate in Austin. But the place had a legacy so tied to the ’70s. We had to go up a quarter on our beers, it was like a godd*mn rebellion.

Rombach: The building went up for sale, and I couldn’t afford to buy it. So, they sold the building out from under us [in 2002]. The person who bought it used a loophole in the law to take over the name.

Brannon: One of the guys [from Austin’s Pizza] was a very wealthy man, and he wasn’t afraid to spend the money to make the changes that were made at Hole in the Wall. They did an incredible job with the work that they did there to turn the property into what it is now. It was a shell of a building.

JD Torian, former owner with Austin’s Pizza: Out of the procession of owners, we were kind of—villain is the wrong word—but we just tried to sit there and take our lumps. While everybody was yelling at us about owning it, they were still coming every single day.

The Hole in the Wall has several famous “Wall of Regulars” peppered throughout the venue.

Tanner: A friend of a friend [Torian] was talking, and he mentioned he owned Hole in the Wall. And I was like ‘Oh my God, I love that place.’ [In 2008] he was basically like, ‘You want it?’ He had got it in a whole asset purchase when he bought Austin’s Pizza, and it was an outlier for him.

Torian: It’s a bit like the cliché of the dog who caught the car. It was like, this is going to be cool to own the Hole in the Wall. And then it’s like, Oh sh*t, we own the Hole in the Wall.

MacDonald: The survival story it still exists. It’s still there. I saw it almost fall a couple times. There was a big movement to save it at one point. Now it’s probably gone past the point of no return; it’s probably solid now that it’s survived. Hopefully its history and legacy continues to feed it.

Minor: There’s a giant five-story hotel that just got built next door [in 2019]. It’s really strange to drive by there sometimes and just look at it and think, how in the world is that still hanging on there?

Leos: We used to be a staff before COVID of 20 to 26 people. Granted, a lot of people had second jobs, or art projects or music. We were closed for a while, and we did shows outside for a long time because we couldn’t have stuff indoors. Now, we’re closer to 15 or 16 [employees]… but somehow this pirate ship still floats.

Gomaa: We were always a bit of an underdog, and we still are. And now, in the age of when everything is marketing a certain way, you need to be able to keep up with that while maintaining the place’s identity. And I think that’s been the challenge.

Leos: I think ultimately the city is going to do something to help us out. That’s what they’ve been telling us. This is a place that’s super tied into the culture of the working-class musicians that work here.

Tanner: We’re in another lease negotiation. The last one was pretty brutal, but the landlord has been pretty great through COVID. We’ve found a way to communicate. I’ve realized they’ve got limits and they realize I have limits. So, we’re just working on figuring it out.

ONE BIG HAPPY DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY

Leos: Austin has always been this crazy cast of characters and of eccentrics on whatever political spectrum, whatever gangster spectrum, and crooks, and all that.

McCoy: It was kind of a dysfunctional family for musicians. Like if you ever went to a Thanksgiving there, in those early days, for me, it was just people kind of picking up where their families left.

Lucinda Williams got kicked out of there every other weekend.

Smith: It was like the place that time would not change. It always sort of felt stuck in that ’70s era. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I think everybody there felt that there was great loyalty of place to the establishment. It was a shrine with drinks.

Tanner: I like that it’s not new-old. Today, places open as dive bars. When real dive bars first opened, they were really proud of themselves. They thought they were fancy, then over time it gets divey. It was a true dive bar with a great group of regulars.

Brannon: Regulars own the place, all right? If you ever need any help, they’re there for you. Sometimes they drink too much, sometimes they need to be cut off, reprimanded, 86ed, but they’re your lifeblood.

Dani Neff, musician in Megafauna: I’ve had so many great nights there, I’ve been there many times, maybe 50. It’s one of those places where you always run into someone you know, like Cheers. And you know everyone there is probably a good person, you have that feeling when you walk in.

Rombach: I honestly knew over 300 people by name that came there on a regular basis, and that didn’t count the musicians. We would always watch Jeopardy together, that sort of thing doesn’t happen now.

Mike Feissli, longtime regular: I worked right across the street at UT. From when I got off of work until sunset I’d be over there. I first started going there to watch Jeopardy after work because they always had it on. People I knew at Hole in the Wall, I only knew at Hole in the Wall.

MacDonald: They had the walls lined with portraits of their favorite patrons. It was these pen and ink, black and white portraits, 8-by-10s. I recognize so many of the people in the pictures because I saw them every time we were in there.

Minor: It seems like it’s a relic or a fossil in a way. It is almost like a miracle that it still remains intact. There’s something about the energy that is contained and embedded and infused in the walls there and on the stage and at the bar. That’s what I think is keeping it from just decomposing like a fossil: It’s encased in its own history.

By Omar Gallaga

House of Cards

A cost-of-living crisis is at hand, and neighborhood groups command an outsized influence on affordable housing efforts. Has Austin become the NIMBY capital of Texas?

Illustration by Doug Chayka

Ona Tuesday night in May 2022, an hours-long Austin Planning Commission meeting became a tense standoff between protesting activists wielding colorful signs and local homeowners armed with PowerPoint slides citing their objections. As committee members on the huge, wood-paneled dais presided, public commenters sparred back and forth, and a room generally mired in mundane bureaucracy became a battleground that epitomized the crux of Austin’s deepening housing crisis.

The meeting had the misfortune of taking place on May 24, the day of the Robb Elementary mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Nerves were frayed. Some who spoke that night referenced the tragedy in their remarks.

The project in question, a building on East 39th Street to be called Cady Lofts, is meant to serve as supportive habitation for 100 single adults, some of Austin’s most vulnerable citizens who might other-

wise go homeless. Developers, community social-service advocates, and some area residents, flanked by protestors brandishing pointed rhetoric on posterboard—“BUILD CADY LOFTS!” “PERMANENT SUPPORTIVE HOUSING CAN’T WAIT”— spoke in favor of an immediate zoning change, from single family and mixed-use residential to multifamily residential land use.

João Paulo Connolly, executive director of Austin Justice Coalition, argued that the case was too urgent to delay; it would prevent citizens from living in unsafe, unsanitary conditions that drastically lower life expectancy. “To live on the street is like living in the 18th century,” Connolly said. “This is not simply a postponement discussion. This is a life-or-death discussion.”

But two groups, the Hancock Neighborhood Association and the Central Austin Neighborhood Planning Advisory Committee, clamored for more research on risks that the project might present to their community, and a contingent of area residents turned up with statements of opposition to poke holes in the plan. During the public comment portion of the meeting, one neighbor remarked on the dearth of ADA-compliant sidewalks in the area and called the plan “negligent at best.” Jennifer Dillahunty, a 21-year resident of the Hancock area, said the area is “not an elitist neighborhood, and we are for affordable housing. This feels a little bit like a rushed kind of experiment.”

HNA’s statement complained that the project wasn’t a fit for the neighborhood and alluded ominously to what an influx of these new residents could mean for the safety of the current populace, conjuring visions of some unknown bogeyman. Increased congestion and lack of parking were also mentioned.

These types of scare tactics, packaged as practical concerns, are default talking points for NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) neighborhood groups that oppose new affordable housing development in Austin and beyond.

Just before a unanimous commission vote approved the rezoning recommendation to send to the Austin City Council, Megan Lash, one of the principals on the project with Saigebrook Development, LLC, sounded as if she’d tired of the same repeated NIMBY grievances. “I support affordable housing, just not in this location,” she intoned wearily. “I wish I could tell you how

City employees Mandy DeMayo and James May at the site of a planned project on Manor Road.

many times I have heard that throughout the course of my career.”

The Hancock Neighborhood Association, perhaps acknowledging that it was not going to win its fight, backed off on most of its Cady Lofts opposition a week after the planning commission meeting. But it’s just one fight among dozens of cases that affordable housing experts say are slowing down progress as the crisis is exploding.

The case of Cady Lofts, and the back-and-forth that has beset its slow resolution, mirrors a bevy of similar efforts attempting to make Austin accessible to more people. A huge growth spurt in new, affluent residents and economic prosperity has triggered raised rents, real estate prices, and salaries for many years. Now, that skyrocketing cost of living has locals facing housing insecurity or even homelessness—Austin is reaping what it sowed.

No matter how beneficial, affordable housing projects typically induce legal disputes and planning-commission fights. NIMBY challenges, however, tend to emerge when these propositions enter more affluent areas of town where area homeowners have the time and resources to weigh in.

While these NIMBY groups may be well intentioned—hoping to preserve the value of their home investment—their comparative entitlement tends to give these struggles a David and Goliath vibe in progressive-posturing Austin. Yet they happen again and again.

In planning stages, NIMBY factions can have outsized influence in blocking or even legally challenging zoning changes that some affordable housing projects are pursuing, stymying the shifts needed to move forward. NIMBY groups often cite crime risks as well as hits to housing values for existing neighborhood homeowners, and the perception that these new constructions will be community eyesores, blocking Texas sunset views with multi-story builds.

“If we have to fight this kind of uphill battle for every hundred units of supportive housing we build,” says Connolly, “we’re never going to get anywhere near these goals we have for ending homelessness or meeting our affordable housing blueprint.”

Walter Moreau, executive director at Foundation Communities, which creates and maintains supportive housing projects in Austin, has dealt with about a dozen NIMBY crusades over the years, only one of which ended up in court. “The main concerns we hear are, ‘There’s going to be crimes and drugs. It’s going to be ugly.’ But the heart of it is: ‘I don’t want those people living near me.’”

Affordable housing advocates try to counter a public perception problem, pointing out that fears about increased crime and falling property values rarely hold up to scrutiny. But some groups still pump out misleading information to residents who don’t have the time to embark on their own research.

Sometimes, those neighbors need to see an example of what’s to come in order to reassess their opposition. “We’ve done tours, and I think folks are always surprised by who lives in affordable housing,” says Mandy DeMayo, community development administrator for the City of Austin. “It dispels the myth of what public housing actually looks like.”

Skyrocketing cost of living has locals facing housing insecurity or even homelessness—Austin is reaping what it sowed.

An aerial view of Community First Village! in East Austin; the affordable housing development’s founder Alan Graham.

We’ve made a lot of progress, but it’s really just a drop in the bucket compared to what’s needed.

Falling Through the Cracks

EVERY THURSDAY AT 10 a.m. at Spring Terrace apartments, it’s Coffee Hour. On Nov. 17, Rev. Angela Michael has come upstairs from her subsidized efficiency apartment to enjoy some of the cake, biscuits and gravy, and fruit. She’s going to take some of it back to Puzzles, her 5-year-old Maine coon.

“He was the runt of the litter. He could fit in the palm of my hand,” says Michael, 58, showing a photo of the cat on her phone.

Puzzles came along just before she moved to Spring Terrace in 2017, when her rent at an apartment complex in South Austin unexpectedly spiked to $1,700 a month. Michael is disabled; she suffers from bilateral spinal stenosis, and her monthly Social Security stipend stagnated at $1,011 for years. A cost-of-living adjustment (“Thank God for COLA,” she says) recently raised that income to $1,099—still a far cry from what any Austinite could live on six years ago or today.

“I was hopeless. I had no place to go, and the email came up asking if I was still interested in Spring Terrace. I couldn’t believe it,” Michael says.

Similar to the prospective Cady Lofts project, Spring Terrace is one of seven supportive housing communities serving single adults in Austin that’s run by Foundation Communities. The nonprofit employs some of its residents to work on programs like the weekly Coffee Hour and provides access to services that many of its at-risk residents need, such as health, education, and financial-stability programs. Subsidized rent prices are currently $505 to $966 depending on the units, which are 256 to 509 square feet, with a $29 application fee and $100 deposit. All utility bills are paid for residents, and the apartment building includes a food pantry and community kitchen.

It’s the kind of Austin housing that those at risk for homelessness desperately need, but there’s not nearly enough of it. Building new units, converting existing hotels, or renovating apartment buildings into permanent residences serves as a safety net for the city’s most economically vulnerable residents. However, they can take years to build, and waitlists for available units stretch out six months or more.

This type of construction constitutes only one spoke in a complicated wheel of Austin’s ongoing affordable housing crisis. For every low-income resident such as Michael, there are tens of thousands of middle-income Austinites who are also being priced out of the market.

In November, Austin voters passed a $350 million affordable housing bond package with about 71

percent of voters supporting the measure. The bond provides money to supportive housing initiatives, buying land and subsidizing the building of new homes, and repairing existing homes for low-income residents. It was the most recent of four similar bonds totaling $55 million in 2006, $65 million in 2013, and $250 million in 2018. Just as the November 2022 iteration was passing, the last of the 2018 funds were being allocated by the Austin City Council to projects including low-income rental units.

All of these measures are meant to help counter rising rents and unattainable mortgages (with interest rates recently increasing), but local experts say the money still isn’t enough.

“We’ve made a lot of progress, but it’s really just a drop in the bucket compared to what’s needed,” says James May, housing and community development officer for the City of Austin. In addition to buying and developing land, the city has also tried to incentivize affordable housing with a density bonus program and an initiative called “Affordability Unlocked,” which offers waivers in exchange for designating half of a development’s units as affordable. Cady Lofts, for instance, is one project that couldn’t happen without that program.

Supportive housing like Spring Terrace is still needed for those at risk of homelessness, but much of Austin’s attention to the housing crisis has been focused on homes that fall under the term “affordable housing.” That’s structured for those with a household income that falls at a specified fraction of Austin’s median fixed income. Those types of single-family houses or apartments are not being built quickly enough for residents who can’t contend with the current market.

May says the city is working to accelerate the timeline for affordable and supportive housing projects. Terrace at Oak Springs in East Austin took nearly a decade to complete and made 50 furnished new units available to support residents dealing with homelessness, mental illness, or substance abuse. Another, Espero at 1934 Rutland Drive, required about three years and created 171 units that are set to become available in early 2023.

In affordable housing, sticker shock is the bigger issue. The median family income for the Austin-Round Rock area was $110,300 as of 2022, juiced by competitively high pay for tech jobs and high-income families moving to the area. Surprisingly, that high mark means that a family of four in Austin making $88,250 is now considered at the higher edge of “low income” for the area. Without debt, that family could afford a $342,000 mortgage, but couldn’t come close to tackling the $601,250 median home price in Austin, as of November 2022.

Families once considered middle class or better—teachers, firefighters, and nurses—must seek places to live outside of Austin, often a lengthy commute away from their jobs. The only other option is to desperately hope that some type of affordable alternatives becomes available before it’s too late.

Thinking Outside the Lot

THERE AREN’T MANY conversations about homelessness, supportive housing, or the future of affordability in Austin that don’t lead to Alan Graham and the vibrant neighborhoods of modern trailers and multicolored houses he helped create deep on the East Side.

After founding the nonprofit Mobile Loaves and Fishes in 1998, he began working to house people in RVs six years later. The concept eventually became Community First! Village, which completed its first phase of 235 homes in 2018 and is wrapping up another to bring the total number up to 540 permanent housing units near Decker Lane. Next, Graham says, will be the development of a neighboring 51-acre plot and 76 acres on Burleson Road with the eventual goal of more than 1,900 total homes.

How did Graham and Mobiles Loaves do it? He avoided NIMBY groups altogether by building outside the city. “When you develop in the county, you don’t have zoning. And zoning is really the only thing that NIMBY can battle against—what’s legally known as discretionary land use,” Graham explains. “In the county you’re going to get some opposition, but the opposition doesn’t have much strength.”

The affordability issue in Austin housing, especially as it relates to at-risk populations and those dealing with homelessness, is more complex and involves a plethora of systems beyond homebuilding and funding. “We have a failed foster-care system, mental health system, physical health, trauma, living wages, the criminal justice system, the issue of equality,” Graham says. “These are all issues that compound and exacerbate [affordable housing].”

Add to that the fact that the city’s zoning codes, which specify 75 percent of the land as residentially zoned, date back to 1983. An attempt to update them, even in a watered-down form called CodeNEXT, was sued out of existence by NIMBY groups— vanquished by backyard warriors and abandoned by the Austin City Council in 2018. The City Council tried another take on the rewrite, but those appeals were struck down as well with more finality by 2022, when the court ruled in favor of 19 suing landowners. The decision came after hundreds of Austinites showed up at Council meetings to protest new rules. So, builders are stuck with outdated parameters that don’t allow much flexibility for anything other than duplexes and stand-alone houses on a lot of the city’s available land.

“If you want new middle class housing in Austin, that’s row houses, that’s two-or-three story apartment buildings. If you don’t allow that, you’re not going to get middle class housing for the city, period,” says Conor Kenny, a principal at Austin builder Capital A Housing, the developer of several affordable housing projects like Seabrook Square. Austin, he predicts, will go the way of Los Angeles and dig itself deeper in a housing hole, where only the elite can afford the limited number of new developments.

“California looked right at the cliff for 20 years and didn’t turn and just drove right off,” Kenny says. “We’re headed for disaster.”

In short, we’re facing a crisis that most Austinites don’t fully grasp. Getting residents to figure out who qualifies for affordable housing programs, and how quickly those numbers are shifting, constitutes a huge messaging problem. Without appreciating the sense of urgency at hand, many don’t understand that they are falling further and further away from affordability, until feasibly finding a place to live doesn’t exist.

In 2021, some professionals including teachers and police officers fell into the “moderate income” category. Only a year later, for 2022, they fell into “low income,” making them eligible for some affordable housing projects—although that shift is nothing to celebrate.

One nonprofit, HousingWorks Austin, has been researching the idea of employer-assisted housing, where businesses provide stipends or assistance with a down payment if an employee stays at a

company for a contracted amount of time. The plan cuts down both commute times for workers and turnover rates for employers, who are hypothetically able to retain staff longer.

Austin Independent School District may take that idea a step further: In July, it announced plans to build housing on two sites it owns, at the Anita Ferrales Coy Facility in East Austin, and the former Rosedale School in central North Austin. The current plan is to build single-family homes, apartments, and townhomes on those sites and make them affordable for teachers, staff, and families of district students. AISD employs 11,000 workers.

Those homes may not be available until 2025 at the earliest. But while the idea of building housing for teachers on a site that the school district already owns would seem like an obvious solution, opposition has already reared its head.

At a series of September 2022, district-hosted meetings concerning the efforts, Rosedale-area homeowners asked whether the project would accelerate gentrification, change the character of the neighborhood with a proposed apartment complex, or increase traffic congestion.

Even a project meant for desperate educators clinging to the hope of housing on district-owned land did not escape the everwatchful eye of NIMBY. Austin’s affordable housing advocates have gotten used to the fight and have even developed shrewd tactics to combat the derailing or delaying of new projects. But while the battles rage on in planning commission sessions, neighborhood meetings, and City Hall protests, housing in Austin only becomes pricier, more remote, and, quite possibly, an impossible dream for so many.

Rev. Angela Michael at Spring Terrace, one of the city’s seven supportive housing communities.

Women to Watch

Austin Monthly salutes the many local women affecting change and making waves in their industries. We support and highlight female entrepreneurs and business leaders with this annual Women to Watch special advertising section. Get to know some of the phenomenal women leading Austin in the following pages.

Sarah Evans Closet

Factory

Meet Sarah!

A savvy and forthright woman in business, Sarah Evans owns and operates Closet Factory, a custom closet and storage solutions company in Austin. When most people think of construction, they likely picture a man in a hard hat. Working in the construction industry, a field dominated by men, has provided its own challenges for a young female owner, but Sarah and her team are proud to be one of the 13% of construction companies that are women-owned, continuing to break the mold and change the perception of the people who build.

“I like to call us magicians,” says Sarah. “Maybe we aren’t exactly that, but we often perform some dazzling closet makeovers. We understand our client’s needs and that each person or family is unique. So are their storage needs.”

Closet Factory also does so much more than just closets: home offices, laundry rooms, mudrooms, pantries, garages, wine rooms, entertainment centers, and more. Each design consultation is a collaborative effort between the client and their designer. Together, they will create a storage system specifically designed for the client’s lifestyle and the items they store. Finishing touches include styling the closet to fit into the aesthetic of the home, which is part of the fun and magic. Contact Closet Factory to help you refresh your space and place in 2023.

@CLOSETFACTORY_AUSTIN

CLOSETFACTORY.COM

INFO@CLOSETFACTORYAUSTIN.COM

8112 FERGUSON CUT OFF, AUSTIN, TX 78724

Women to Watch

Women to Watch

Alaina Martin is known for her enthusiasm, work ethic, and ability to create a positive buying and selling experience for her clients who often become friends. Alaina resides in the Westlake area and has also lived in South Austin and downtown, giving her a deep appreciation and knowledge of city living and the Lake Austin lifestyle. Having relocated from New York City a few years ago, Alaina enjoys helping Austin newcomers navigate a competitive real estate market. She finds satisfaction in giving her clients a competitive advantage with pre-market opportunities.

Alaina leverages her media background in real estate—she was chosen to host Selling Texas on American Dream TV, an Emmy-nominated television show highlighting real estate and the Austin lifestyle. Alaina loves to travel, wake surf on Lake Austin, and spend time with her 5-year-old son, Tucker. She’s proud to support Big Brothers Big Sisters and LifeFamily Church.

@ALAINAMARIEMARTIN

ALAINA@GOTTESMANRESIDENTIAL.COM

ALAINAMARTIN.COM

512-777-8082 1501 ENFIELD ROAD, AUSTIN, TX 78703

Alaina Martin Gottesman Residential

Barbara Garza

AESA Prep Academy

Barbara Garza has made a noteworthy contribution in the field of education, as founder and superintendent of the AESA International School System. Overseeing the flagship AESA Prep Academy of Austin, a private college preparatory school, Barbara provides an unrivaled opportunity to motivate K-12 scholars, athletes, and artists. Barbara’s vision is to see students grow into well-educated young adults with unparalleled opportunities for prosperity and philanthropy. Producing worldly citizens who lead filling and productive lives is her legacy. Her educators specialize in empowering students to pursue their individual passions in a world-class academic environment that allows small class sizes and flexible schedules. Within this model a student is taught work-life balance, something rare in modern education. Barbara is dedicated to meeting the needs of the entire student allowing excellence in academic and extracurricular activities. These efforts assist in developing compassionate, confident, and enlightened students who meet and exceed their personal goals.

INFO@AESAPREPACADEMY.COM

AESAPREPACADEMY.COM

512-774-4822

14101 CANONADE DRIVE, AUSTIN, TX 78737

Women to Watch

Valerie Pierce started Elite Austin in 2014 and has since built the company to a team of 20 talented professionals, specializing in All Things Furniture, for Rent or Purchase. This group of design experts offer Home Staging focused on marketing and optimizing the sale of real estate, as well as Luxury Furniture Leasing that transforms interiors into comfortable, designer residences that feel like home. Elite Austin’s pieces are also available for purchase, perfect for clients in need of Residential Furnishings.

Elite Austin creates beautiful and functional spaces with quick lead times and the process is all about you, the furniture, and conciergestyle service. From their professional design team to in-house logistics crew, Elite Austin seamlessly handles all aspects of their clients’ furniture needs from design and space planning to delivery, installation, and pickup.

Since establishing Elite Austin, Valerie continues to curate a signature collection of designer furnishings that exude style and sophistication. She and her team believe everyone should feel at home, whether your situation is temporary or permanent. Call or visit their website to discover how Elite Austin can transform your home today.

@ELITEAUSTIN

DESIGN@ELITEAUSTIN.COM

ELITEAUSTIN.COM

512-366-8189

Valerie Pierce

Elite Austin

Malena M. Amato, MD, FACS, and Marie Somogyi,

MD, FACS

Eyelid & Facial Plastic Surgery Associates

Dr. Malena Amato and Dr. Marie Somogyi are thrilled to announce their partnership at Eyelid & Facial Plastic Surgery Associates. As boardcertified leaders in their field, Dr. Amato and Dr. Somogyi strive to deliver the highest level of personalized patient care in a beautiful state-of-the-art facility. They offer a comprehensive range of treatments and services spanning the breadth of oculofacial plastic surgery, from cosmetic surgery to trauma and tumors for all ages.

This new alliance is founded on strong family values, both in the workplace and at home, as they are both mothers to two sons, balancing the demands of teens and toddlers with their professional life. Their genuine love for taking care of others is reflected in their relationships with their staff and their patients, who they consider to be members of their extended family. They also contribute to the community as adjunct faculty of Dell Medical School, and continue to teach, do research, and participate in medical mission trips around the world.

Their impeccable training, skill, and expertise along with their ongoing commitment to patient care has made them sought-after specialists in their discipline. They look forward to welcoming new patients and providing the best possible experience for oculoplastic surgery in the Austin area. AUSTINFACE.COM 512-501-1010 MEDICAL OAKS PAVILION, 12201 RENFERT WAY,STE. 100, AUSTIN, TX 78758

Women to Watch

Women to Watch

Sarah Railey, Cindy Goldrick, and Emily Moreland

Austin’s leading boutique real estate brokerage, Moreland Properties, was founded in 1986 by Owner and Chairman of the Board, Emily Moreland. Sarah Railey, the COO, and Broker, leads the company’s charge as Austin continues to grow. In 2022, Cindy Goldrick (founder of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors) along with her agents, joined Moreland to further enhance the strengths of their local brokerages together. Focusing on highly customized, in-person agent attention, a client-care mentality, and an ongoing commitment to local nonprofits that make Austin a wonderful place to call home, these women continue to inspire and encourage.

Moreland’s local knowledge, combined with their exclusive membership in Forbes Global Prop e rties and reputation for professional, discreet representation have made them the city’s leading boutique brokerage. Each Moreland agent works as a careered real estate advisor devoting themselves full-time to gaining market knowledge and delivering results.

AN ORIGINAL AUSTIN BROKERAGE Serving ATX & surrounding areas since 1986

@MORELANDPROPERTIES MORELAND.COM

512-480-0848

AUSTIN | WESTLAKE

LAKE TRAVIS | DOWNTOWN

From left to right: Cindy Goldrick, Sarah Railey, and Emily Moreland.

Lisa Marie Bustos Bustos

Family Law

Lisa Marie Bustos is a family law attorney passionate about guiding those in difficult times towards their brighter future. Through her own personal and professional experiences, Lisa has seen the difficulties parties face in the legal system when fighting to protect their family, their rights, and their assets. Lisa strongly believes that all parties should have a voice in family law litigation and should strive to come to pragmatic resolutions in each case.

Bustos Family Law PLLC was founded on the principles of service and integrity. Whether it is a negotiated settlement or in courtroom trial experience, Lisa is a dedicated and experienced advocate here to make you feel educated and empowered in your legal process. Austin Monthly named the attorneys in the firm among the city’s Top Attorneys for 2021 and 2022. Lisa and associate attorneys Katy Lovett and Thomas Just joined the ranks of Super Lawyers® in 2023.

@BUSTOSFAMILY

FACEBOOK.COM/BUSTOSFAMILYLAW

BUSTOSFAMILYLAW.COM 512-766-2768

INFO@BUSTOSFAMILYLAW.COM

1705 S. CAPITAL OF TEXAS HWY., STE. 200, AUSTIN, TX 78746

Women to Watch

Natalie Green and Jessica Vessells

Four Hands Home

If you see a Four Hands piece in the wild, chances are Natalie Green and Jessica Vessells have played a part in its selection. Together, the Four Hands Home account executives share over 20 years’ experience in sales and customer service. A native Texan and East Coast transplant respectively, Green and Vessells have helped boost the Woodward Street home furnishing showroom’s sales by more than 200% over the last five years. Catering to locals, Four Hands Home attracts designers and design enthusiasts alike, furnishing a range of residential homes, hospitality hotspots, and more. The newly remodeled 22,000-square-foot showroom offers hundreds of high-end styles in a range of price points. Led by showroom manager Nealie Gillis, the Four Hands Home team builds lasting relationships with their customers, whether established architects or first-time homebuyers. “Furniture shopping can feel daunting without guidance,” says Vessells. “We like to provide trusted support to our clients, sharing our knowledge of products, materials, pricing, lead times, and shipping specifications.”

Recent homebuyers themselves–Green in South Austin and Vessells in Lockhart–the saleswomen regularly assist customers from New Braunfels to Georgetown and everywhere between.

“We feel lucky to live and work in Austin,” reflects Green. “There’s so much opportunity in our ever-growing city.”

@FOURHANDSFURNITURE FOURHANDS.COM

512-225-0333

2090 WOODWARD ST., AUSTIN TX 78744

Women to Watch

Inspired Closets

Meet the creative team at Inspired Closets. Excited and passionate to bring luxurious style and organization to homes, businesses, and retail settings across the Central Texas region, our dedicated team of professionals welcome the opportunity to help clients realize the full potential of their spaces.

Visit their expansive new showroom to tour over 15 custom installations including closets, pantries, media centers, wall beds, home offices, garages, wine bars, and more!

Call or visit the website to schedule a complimentary consultation with one of Inspired Closets’ talented designers to explore how Inspired Closets can transform your next space.

@INSPIREDCLOSETSAUSTIN INSPIREDCLOSETSAUSTIN.COM 512-288-5552

7601 S. CONGRESS AVE., STE. 300, AUSTIN, TX 78745

Back row: Kelly Toye, Alexis Barry, Catherine Meyer, Alyssa Jordan, Rae Ann Hill, Brittney Kratzer, Kathy Bergstraser; front row: Krista Crain, Beth Cloutier, LeAnne Young; not pictured: Sherry Halley, Joann Wilmeth, and Barbara Tatro.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

In the 1980s, three college friends started a condom delivery service that made the national media stand up and take notice.

BY ROSIE NINESLING

“BONER POLICE” WAS too on the nose. “Wrapped Up Rascal” seemed silly. But when three UT students and roommates conceived the name “The Protection Connection” for their condom delivery service in 1986, they took the idea and ran with it. After stapling hundreds of homemade fliers around campus, they were a controversial sensation by sunrise.

For many men—who were often shy about asking a pharmacy clerk to unlock the contraceptive display during the height of the AIDS epidemic—it was a noble service. “There was a serious element to it,” says Christopher Bray, one of the three founders. “We were the first generation who we felt was shortchanged when it came to having risk-free sex.”

Not everyone had that perspective. “Oh, my God,” wrote sophomore Kristen Carsen in The Daily Texan. “That’s disgusting.” Science major Tracey Cotton was also distressed after seeing the

ads: “What else do they do—pull up in the alley and offer abortions?”

The story quickly spread from the student newspaper to national publications. The Wall Street Journal and Playboy spotlighted their business. Doonesbury put together a parody comic. People magazine had a lengthy write-up ready to go—then pulled it at the last second for being too risqué. Meanwhile, the trio purchased weekly bags of contraceptives from Nau’s Enfield Drug and kept their telephone ringer on high. If someone called at 4 a.m., they’d be on their motorcycle in seconds flat.

After a year of diligence, the friends decided to move on. “We were 20-year-old men with the attention spans of gnats,” says Bray. While The Protection Connection only generated beer money, the rewards exceeded any monetary gain. “It was carefree, it was mischievous—and it was fun.”