First Look: The Dead Rabbit and Neighbourhood Cafe Bring Belfast to Austin
By Haris Qureshi, August 9, 2024, 9:00am, On the Range
The Dead Rabbit, an award-winning Irish pub that opened in New York’s Financial District more than a decade ago, has planted its roots in Austin with a Downtown location at 204 E. Sixth. It also brings a new neighbor next door: Neighbourhood Cafe at 200 E. Sixth.
Named “The World’s Best Bar” in 2015 by Tales of the Cocktail, The Dead Rabbit recently opened a few weeks ago in an area that has become a hotspot for Austin speakeasies and cocktail bars. Dead Rabbit’s bar manager Brittany McMillan says, “We're lucky to be alongside places like Midnight Cowboy, Small Victory, Here Nor There, and Firehouse. We wanted to embrace what Austin is and to me that's being inviting, fun and approachable while still getting elevated cocktails.”
Right next to them is Neighbourhood Cafe, a Belfast-based cafe which has similarly made the jump to Austin’s historic Sixth Street district. The cafe, owned by Ryan Crown and Oisin McEvoy, is open from 7am-4pm and serves coffee and pastries with light bites. “Neighbourhood Cafe has known Jack McGarry, our managing partner, forever and he was one of the founders [of Dead Rabbit],” says McMillan. “All of these pieces on the wall [at Neighbourhood] were curated for our space including hiring three photographers to capture modern day Ireland in a lot of the portraits that you see.”
We recently stopped by to try the tiramisu latte at Neighbourhood, and then followed it up by going next door to The Dead Rabbit to grub on some classic Irish-American pub food with their corned beef sliders and sausage rolls. We had to get some of their famous frozen Irish coffee and a pint of Guinness as well (for the culture!).
We asked McMillan for some of her favorite cocktails: “The Usquebach is one of our most popular from New York. When I got up there to train, that was one I fell in love with. That has lemon juice, natural spice, cinnamon and some Tealing whiskey. An Austin-specific cocktail would be the Lawn Dart which has Mal Bien Mezcal. It's got a spicy margarita vibe to it.”
The Dead Rabbit brings a little different environment than the shot bars that have historically lined Dirty Sixth and it’s certainly a welcome addition to the area. “After 4pm, we'll be renting the Neighbourhood space out for private events as The Dead Rabbit and using it as overflow space for the weekends when we get busy,” says McMillan. She also hints that, similar to their New York space, they’ll start hosting live music and comedy events (and in doing so will join the list of relatively new stand-up venues to hit Sixth Street, alongside Sunset Strip and Comedy Mothership), so expect new Dublin vibes in Downtown Austin to become a permanent presence by the time SXSW 2025 rolls around.
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