The Coffeehouse Chronicles

Neighborhood: Barton Springs Restaurant Row

Address/Phone: 1601 Barton Springs Road/322-9750

Hours: Mon, 7am-7pm; Tue-Thu, 7am- midnight; Fri-Sat, 7am-1am; Sun, 8am-11pm

Munchables: Bakery goods, sandwiches, smoothies

Standard Cup o' Joe: $1.10

Bean Source: Texas Coffee Traders

Crowd: Post-park Zilkerites, South Austin students, wandering gypsies

Artwork: Work by local artists

Soundtrack: Johnny Cash, Ween

Bonus Points: Serious live music venue, beer and wine

The Room: This stalwart of the Barton Springs entertainment corridor gets better every year despite a wacky location (built into a hillside) and very little parking that's not at a 45 degree angle. Seems that part of the adventure of Flip's is testing the limits of one's parking brake and/or uphill parking skills.

Flipnotics Coffeespace occupies the upper half of the two-story Flipnoplex and shares the Sixties-era split-level with the consistently kitschy resale boutique of the same name. Design-wise, the building resembles Mike Brady's early work, with weathered benches and built-in seating on a spacious, rambling deck favored for its quiet "off the street" atmosphere. A slow coffee in the coffeespace's inner sanctum -- a dark burgundy room with regal golden trim -- is vaguely reminiscent of a return to the womb (with a better caffeine pipeline).

The cafe also takes its music pretty damn seriously, with live shows five nights a week featuring eclectic local talent and exceptional standing gigs. In a tradition worth continuing, Guy Forsyth hosts a casual lunchtime blues jam on Wednesdays out on the deck. And later the same night, the Tattooed Avenger, Mark Rubin, plays the inner room's tiny corner stage with his klezmer band Rubinchik's Orkestyr. And until you've seen the big man work his way through a clarinet-heavy Latvian dance beat -- slinging a cello like a rockabilly laptop, no less -- you really haven't lived.