Cover Story
Best of Austin 2007
Readers’ and critics’ favorites
Will Vince Young Miss His First Game Ever? We’ll Find Out Sunday.
The less said about Houston’s loss to the Jaguars last week the better. Good news is the Texans are 3-3, bad news is that they are in toughest division in the NFL where a 3-3 record lands them in the cellar. The Titans (3-2) were defeated last week as well (13-10 to Tampa Bay), with…
‘World Series of Poker 2008: Battle for the Bracelets’
Is poker still a viable game when there’s no actual money at stake – your pride maybe but not your money? Like most good Americans, I’d much rather give up my pride than my money. That absence of fiscal commitment in video-game poker makes for a lack of the risk that imbues the real-life card…
‘Cabela’s Trophy Bucks’
The very idea of a hunting video game seems doomed from conception. The rub for games that re-create activities the average American could do lies between being true to the experience and making the game fun. Trophy Bucks achieves neither. Place the blame on the solitary game mode for the lack of enjoyment. “Career hunt”…
Lone Star Love for Rudy
Ranking state Republicans continue to sign off on the Giuliani campaign
Bards and Barks
Humane Society of Williamson County wins poetry contest; pet expo and adoption event in Georgetown this Saturday
‘NBA 2K8’
Once again, 2K Sports has control of the ball with this ’08 version of the NBA 2K franchise. What really makes this game shine like Shaq’s reflective, bald head are the graphics: crowd members’ facial expressions; worn, individual planks of wood on the court; three-dimensional sweat; and even the braillelike bumps on the basketball are…
‘NBA 08: The Life v3’
PlayStation2 games are still being made? Sony attempting to keep The Life alive? Indeed, Sony has returned to the PS2 platform, trying to upgrade on NBA 07: The Life v2 with flashy add-ons and extras, keeping The Life on the table with a respirator. Trying to keep up with the launch of next-gen games, Life…
The Turkish War on Terror
The Turkish decision to go after terrorists in Iraq could get as bloody as the American decision to do the same thing in 2003.
Night of 100 Fridas!
How made Fridas does it take to lead a procession?
Council Gets a Little Duller
Council pushes back debating the controversial panhandling ordinance for another month.
Bye-Bye, Win Streaks; Bye-Bye, Brits
The UT and St. Edward’s women each had eight-game unbeaten streaks snapped this weekend. The Longhorns lost at Texas A&M, 2-0 on Friday, before beating Big 12 cellar-dweller Baylor on Sunday, 1-0. The Hilltoppers (whose streak was actually eight straight shutout wins) lost Sunday to Incarnate Word. UT dropped to sixth in the latest coaches…
City Council Notebook
Libraries, human trafficking and the panhandling ordinance on the agenda for Thursday morning.
No More Air America in Austin
Progressive radio dies in Texas’ most liberal city
Hard Fight 04, Dirty Fight ’06, Court Fight ’07
Ranking Dallas County Republicans face libel charges over 2006 election allegations.
Iz All Ovar Teh InterWebs
I can has teh secretz?
Making Our City Council Look Good
Aguirre: The Wrath of San Diego City Council
Austin High School Mascot Challenge
You know we love our mascots here at the Score so we’d like to encourage our readers to vote for their favorite Austin high school mascot in the Austin Mascot Challenge. The finalists are Akie the Eagle, Akins High School; Mr. Maroo, Stephen F. Austin High School; Bella the Bulldog, Bowie High School; Victor the…
The Tortured Logic of Jerry Patterson
Why the land commissioner won’t give the Christmas Mountains to the feds.
Brrraaaannng!
Loud around town.
Liner Notes
Benefits, birthdays, etc.
Who’ll Guide the Sunset?
New members appointed to the Sunset Advisory Commission could change its tone.
Help Out Lance Hahn
Lance Hahn needs your help!
Posizione Larga!
We believe you, Monsignor.
Tila Tequila
Perhaps I could get that hour back if I drank reeeeeeal heavily.
Won’t You Come Home, Kay Bailey?
Hutchison keeps everyone still guessing.
Tuesday’s Not Gone
A smattering of Tuesday night music clubs.
Hint to Mack Brown: The Run Is Passé
The Texas Longhorns finally discovered their missing ground game in the process of pounding Iowa State this past Saturday, but it came at the expense of their ground game. Confused? So were the otherwise elated fans who watched the Burnt Orange crew claim a win that was so easy and relaxed I swear I saw…
SCHIP Votes Now, SCHIP Votes in ’08
U.S. Rep. Kay Granger is targeted before the SCHIP veto vote.
When Tomorrow Comes
Policemen ticketing a guy for bathing in the fountain across from The Dallas Morning News at least signals life. On game day Sunday, “The Big D” stands for desolate. Amtrak empties into the heart of downtown, one way only, six-and-a-half hours, and $30 outta Austin, 4pm. Southern Methodist University thespians histrionic at the Greer Garson…
You’re Joking, Right?
Word has it that the Deer Hunter-obsessed heckler at the John Milius/Oliver Stone discussion on war movies actually didn’t create the most uncomfortable moment experienced at an Austin Film Festival panel this weekend (though I for one can’t wait for my commemorative tee-shirt emblazoned with “What the fuck, Milius? What the fuck!”). While I was…
Combs Goes For Rudy
The comptroller become state chair for the Giuliani campaign.
Pair of Deuces Lookin’ for Work…
Just try’n quit teh kitteh!
Puzzling: Cowboys/Patriots Revisited
I have yet to figure out several things in life. I’m not good with algebra, can openers, and women. I also have a hard time understanding evil. What brings a man to acts of darkness? Is it a lust for gold? Power? What makes a seemingly sweet father of a man throw a deep bomb…
Vote-By-Mail Applications Available
Election is Nov. 6; early voting runs Oct. 22-Nov. 2
An Inconvenient Truth About UK Courts
The Neo-Cons go global in their pursuit of Al Gore.
Hispanic Today calendar
Cable access show Hispanic Today features host Peggy Vasquez interviewing various Austin Latinos.
Wrong Game
Wrong Game 2007. Directed by Mark Wood, Starring Norman Weiss, Andy Vasnick, Camille Jeter-Lorello, Mindy Moore. Wrong Game is a mystery thriller created by deaf filmmakers for deaf audiences. It is entirely filmed in American Sign Language.
Selected listings-THE DAILY SHOW
Upcoming on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report
Town Lake Animal Center: The End of the Beginning of the End
Council moves closer to some resolution of the animal shelter problem, amidst furious protests.
Arts Review
The fantastic narratives presented are masterfully woven and most entertaining
Climate Change Crusader Heats Up Renewable Energy Fair
Q&A with Rick Piltz, formerly with the U.S. government’s Climate Change Science Program
Best Motel
So, maybe it’s known by most outsiders as the place they pass on South Congress uttering, “Hey, doesn’t that sign look just like a … ?” But there is so much more to this package. What Austin adores is the fact that this comfortable, modern, yet charming and family-owned (since 1938) place has more than…
Best Place to See New Art
The wait for a world-class art gallery was a long one, but in its second year open, it’s hard to believe we lasted without it. The coolly elegant Blanton, with its labyrinth of galleries looping around the massive central atrium, has an Old World grandeur. The 17,000-piece collection, regularly supported by touring exhibitions, proves Austin…
Best Jukebox
Dim, skull-and-gargoyle interior or inviting garden patio, this bar boasts a vibe more chill than the average Sixth Street joint, and the backdrop couldn’t be better for the hip assortment they pack in the jukebox. Sing the blues with Nina Simone, jam with Funkadelic, rock it out with John Schooley & His One Man Band…
Best Locally Produced Food
Nothing beats a Sweet Leaf Tea with a hefty cup of ice. That’s why they’re abundant at festivals like Austin City Limits – because they’re so friggin’ refreshing! Not to mention darn good mixers (try a Tito’s Sweeto). They’ve blown up like no one’s business, quenching the desire for something other than soda. On one…
Best Recreation Center
This is not the first time that Chronicle readers have singled out Hancock Recreation Center as a great place to play. Tucked away on a shaded hill at the corner of Red River and East 41st, the center is surrounded by one of the oldest golf courses in Austin. But if you and your kiddies…
Best Local TV News
KVUE wins this category again. Why? Because as the Nielsen ratings have declared it most widely watched local newscast for more than a decade, KVUE gives its viewers – a group that apparently includes a lot of Chronicle readers – what they want to see. Plus, they have Olga Campos who is one classy dame,…
Best Weatherperson
Maybe it was being raised in Oklahoma that gave him an insight into wind or studying meteorology at Mississippi State that allowed him to tell humidity from an isobar. Either way, the seasoned weather eye of KXAN’s chief forecaster has won him his reputation as your plaudits for the ninth time. He’s like the friend…
Best Sport
Need a reason to take a shot while the sun’s still rising? Well here’s the best reason we can think of: Touchdown, Longhorns! Nothing whets our whistle quite like a Jamaal Charles rush up the middle for 20, or a Brandon Foster interception or a four-and-out defensive stand on the one. So do you have…
Best Neighborhood
You can count the years of this old Austin neighborhood in the rings of so many shady trees that line the streets. You might not even mind being stuck at a light or stop sign, awaiting the flow of bike traffic or the ducklike waddle of a local nursery-schooler headed for Shipe Park. The original…
Best Florist
The Flower Bucket’s reasonably modest headquarters deliver simple charm, as well as staggering magnificence, in the form of cut flowers, arrangements, and beautiful gifts. Their design brilliance will keep their legion of fans blossoming for years to come.
Best Antiques/Collectibles/Vintage
Seven times now the keen-eyed vintage dealers at Room Service have been recognized by our readers, emphasizing their great taste and range of midcentury to post-century pop-culty artifacts. The NoLo store already has legions of fans, and with the recently added SoLa location, all of Austin can enjoy the treasures within. Yes. We said, “NoLo.”
Best Naughty Business
With all the spice and kinkiness desired for a hoochie-coochie masterpiece, Forbidden Fruit specializes in toys, accessories, and pretty much anything to do with the “s” word. (No, not “soufflé,” silly.) They stand tall in their Tush Teasers and proudly proliferate with workshops like pole-dancing aerobics and Fellatio 101. This, along with a superchill staff,…
Best Coffeehouse That’s as Green as Its Walls
Top interior consultants will tell you that painting the walls of a restaurant green risks a certain queasy factor in dining ambience. Not so at Progress Coffee, where lime walls complement the generous sunshine streaming through the coffeehouse’s many windows. The green is also a fitting symbol. The conscientious eco-practices of Joshua and Sarah Bingaman,…
Best Wholesome Fix for Baked-Good Cravings
From their gluten- and refined-sugar-free sweets, including flaky, alternative-grain cinnamon rolls and rich muffins, to their savory spelt-flour focaccia, gently tucked full of goodies like pesto and sun-dried-tomato sausage, Living Arts Bakery does the seemingly impossible by making scrumptious baked goods good for you, too. Their pastries are currently available at the Sunset Valley Farmers…
Best $olicitation
We see ’em every day, and the old Jimmy Cox tune says it best: “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.” Whether it draws sympathy or just simple social discomfort, we all read their ragged cardboard billboards, and some are surprisingly funny. “Will take verbal abuse, $1” and “Need cash for alcohol research” all…
Best Batter Up
Angsty? Lover getting you down? Picturing your fist through a few layers of drywall? Settle down, tiger. Fire your therapist, burn a rockin’ mix for your ear buds, and head to Round Rock. One dollar delivers a musty helmet, an aluminum bat, and 16 fire-rocket pitches from a mechanical wizard to swing batta-batta swing! Aggression…
Best Designer of a New Austin
For Michael Antenora, a building isn’t just a collection of rooms and walls or a controversial and confrontational statement by the architect. It’s an expression of community and society. His innovative blending of stone, steel, and glass has given Austin some of its most quietly iconic structures, from the bold overhang of the University Federal…
Best Surprise! We Have an Art Show Here!
One step in the door of the agency’s Eastside location, and all eyes become riveted to Luis Abreux’s vibrant, fantastical work. Vivid colors reminiscent of the painter’s native Cuba and the dynamism of the topics command attention; it’s as if his subjects were run through a Chuck Jones-meets-Picasso daydream. You may be tempted to stay…
Best City-Owned Cemetery
As genealogist Danny Camacho put it in a past Chronicle News feature [“City of the Dead,” April 21, 2006], “A cemetery isn’t just a burial place for dead people. … In its own way, it’s very much alive.” Like all cemeteries, Oakwood’s 40 acres are a reflection of their inhabitants’ living societies. In the more-than-century-old…
Hunkiest Mayor
Last year, wearing a silk smoking jacket and pajamas, Wynn gave a teasing view of his manscape at a fashion show by our very own Stephen Moser. This year, he did a pulse-quickening Valentine’s photo spread for Austin Fit magazine. He also whipped off his shirt for a dip and photo shoot in Town Lake.…
Most Exacting House Painter
Big, strappin’ tall drink of water Eve Pettyjohn is a gem, obviously for her precise, perfectionist takes on freehanding your cut-ins; of course for the care she takes in making sure that the color you want is really the color you want once it is surrounding you on all four walls; and most certainly for…
Best Timekeepers
Radio, key, or quartz? Bonnet, flat, or split pediment? Who knew that clock talk had such elaborate lingo? Well, perhaps your grandfather did. And McGuire’s – Texas’ oldest operating clock shop, in business since 1964 – could very well have been your grandfather’s clock shop. And if you have a hankerin’ for the classic as…
Day Trips
The year’s best traveling around Texas
Oops!
Our latest batch
Best New Building (Past Five Years)
Her topping-out ceremony was held in May 2003, and since then, this 515-foot-9-inch-tall beauty has topped this poll while redefining Austin’s new-century skyline. With the recent thrust of high-rise rectangles all over our hyperdeveloping Downtown, this might be the Frost’s last year as Austin’s tallest building, but with her distinct tiara of 45,000 square feet…
Best Theatre Director
Zach Scott’s Dave Steakley has an especially deft hand with musicals, but this year he showed his boldness by daring to stage the all-conquering behemoth that is Disney’s High School Musical and by presenting two big nonmusicals: Take Me Out and Noel Coward’s Present Laughter. Meanwhile, Salvage Vanguard Theater’s Jason Neulander started the year by…
Best Karaoke
Austin’s best for their bright and colorful private rooms, their ever-expanding song list, and their microphones that have a magical way of bringing out the diva in all of us. Is it magic? Is it music? It’s ridiculous amounts of fun, and bravo to Austin Karaoke for playing along without ever once asking for the…
Best Lunch Delivery
While the perfect box lunch from Jason’s isn’t a cure for a case of the Mondays, it’s a standard office favorite for a very good reason – fresh, quality meals and service that continue to rock the corporate grid. Potatoes bigger than your head, bright colorful salads, and desserts to diet for. A bowl of…
Best Restaurant
Eating at Phil’s Icehouse on a summer evening can make anyone wish they were a kid. It’s a bubble of family comfort with an outdoor play area, ice-cream bribes, good beer, and gourmet burgers. This partner restaurant of the beloved Amy’s Ice Creams is a whole-family crowd pleaser.
Best Local Website – Fun
From New York to Austin, the -ist branded blog chain has made its mark wherever it lands. The Central Texas incarnation has quickly become the local scenester’s essential online arbiter of taste, mixing hipster culture buzz with shot-sized news bites.
Best Basketball Court
The boys in the HZ colors mean business. They’re after fast breaks, full-court presses, and scholarships. It means something when you’re on the team, in the gym, working it out at this basketball training facility. Just like it means something to play here, to join the league or come for private drilling. Or even when…
Best Swimming Hole
The crowd. Your book. The hill from which you squint at the people and the pages until you can’t stand to sweat another minute. The jump, when you catapult your body into the cold, cold water. The shock – or what sure feels like it – inside-out and backward. Total refreshment of 68 degrees year-round…
Best News Story
$750,000. That’s what the city offered as a partly forgivable loan to local restaurateurs the Perez sisters in their negotiations with Marriot Corp. over a stretch of back-alley. But it was never really about money. It was a fight over the future of the city’s heart, whether subsidies were just for big developers, and whether…
Best Graphic Artist
Graphic design is a two-handed deal. On one, there’s the design itself. The craft of creating art out of concepts, molding visuals to meet ideas and lending left-brain talent to right-brain analytics. The other, the listening factor. Knowing how to hear and deliver. Both our winners, Full Moon Design Group and Dat Boi Drew, encompass…
Best Clothing
Girly, femme fatale, and sophisticated, all in one hip room. With the best-fitting jeans you’ve worn in your life, plus the cutest purses, earrings, shoes, and doodads, be sure to swing by the last Thursday of every month (7-9pm) for the ultimate in shopping: chair massages, wine, a DJ, munchies, and discounts. Now that’s shopping.
Best New Boutique
Owner Julie Copp continues to provide high-style on the Drag. The former Garden Room buyer focuses her vast experience on a younger market, carrying lines like Ella Moss, Frankie B. jeans, Voom, Chip & Pepper, Anna Sui, and C.C. Skye. With an in-store jeans guru to assure perfect fit, C. Jane is already a hit…
Best Community Culinary Asset
German-born chef Elmar Prambs has been with the Austin Four Seasons Hotel for 20 years, an unheard-of one-property tenure in that company. Prambs has passed up promotions to more glamorous locales, because he and his family love Austin. Over the years, his contributions are a big part of what makes the Four Seasons one of…
Most Comfortable Comfort Food & Chatty Bartenders
If you fancy yourself a character in a B-movie searching for deep, brooding discussions with world-wise bartenders … well, let’s put it this way, Zax Pints & Plates probably won’t be the inspiration for the next Richard Linklater talkie-thon. Instead, Zax is the kind of place where any everyday joe can pull up a bar…
Best Chronicler of a Gracious Life
Summing up a life is never easy, but when the life was as rich in event and character as that of Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson – the woman the world knew as Lady Bird – the challenges are all the greater. Austin American-Statesman writer Janet Wilson had the unenviable task of distilling the 94 years…
Best Deep Water Start Without a Boat
This 70-acre lake-sports megaplex is one of a kind in Texas, with the muscle to pull wakeboarders, knee boarders, and water-skiers on the only man-made cable-way lake around. This affordable wet getaway is stocked to keep you stoked with a restaurant, bar, its own skateboard park, climbing wall, motocross course, lessons, competitions, and oh so…
Best Developer Younger Than 40
Larry Warshaw, 38, was policy director under Mayor Kirk Watson; he believes his projects should reflect community values and support sustainable growth. As a partner in Constructive Ventures, Warshaw’s résumé includes Saltillo Lofts, Pedernales Lofts, and Spring Condominiums. From profits on Barton Place, he and his partners raised the bar by offering the city $1…
Best Window Into the Creative Process
Most art gets created behind closed doors, in the studio or rehearsal hall or writer’s room, where most never see the long, slow process of development and refinement involved in bringing an artistic project to life. But in developing a new home for itself in the old Aus-Tex Printing facility Downtown, Ballet Austin has given…
Best Closure
This old geezer of an electric power plant was finally put to sleep at midnight Oct. 1, much to the delight of neighboring residents who have endured decades of loud churning, dangerous fires, and nagging worries about health hazards. City officials have promised to replace the East Austin plant with – no, not condos, but…
Most Civil Liberating Lady
As legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas – counsel on all statewide cases and recipient of 5,000 complaints a year – Graybill represents the last stand for the Bill of Rights and beyond in the Lone Star state. 2007 has been a busy year for the South Austin resident, as active…
Most Glamorous Event Planner
Her catering company delivers the most stylish food to the most stylish parties, but event planner Suzanne Court herself is a real addition to any occasion. The fashion-friendly, sparkling-eyed beauty is a perfect fit with her clients, providing glamorous food in high style, inventive cuisine, and impeccable service. Offering services such as floral design, invitations,…
Coolest Hottest Glass in Town
A glass craftsman for nearly 20 years, Aaron Gross loves his work and loves dazzling his customers with his gorgeous creations. From magnificent paperweights to enormous, sprawling Chihuly-like installations, and everything in between, Austin Art Glass’ SoCo location is one hot stop on the shopping trail. Classes and demonstrations available.
Soccer Watch
Lady Longhorns earn No. 1 ranking, and more
Page Three
Welcome to the 18th ‘Best of Austin’ issue
Best Outdoor Public Space
Unveiled in 2004, our city’s fifth City Hall is four stories of sleek limestone and copper with more than 70% recycled materials used in its construction. A waterfall fountain greets an ascent of underground stairs rising above street-level to an outdoor amphitheatre. North of town, Simon/Endeavor’s the Domain, Austin’s self-proclaimed outdoor “lifestyle center,” is way…
Best Theatre Performance Space
Zach Scott is well-deserving of an award for its performance spaces. With the original Kleberg stage; the smaller, newer Whisenhunt stage; and the soon-to-be-built 500-seat Kuykendall stage, Zach will have no trouble retaining the honor. With extraordinary set designer Michael Raiford usually at the helm, the simple spaces are transformed into a myriad of locales…
Best Live Club/Party DJ
Every Monday night since 1997, unpretentious mix master DJ Mel has rocked the house at Nasty’s hip-hop night. He spins an eclectic mix of head-boppin’ beats pulling from classic tracks, from Positive Force’s “We Got the Funk” to Dr. Dre, while sliding in the unexpected Eighties pop mixes, the highlight of his Rock the Casbah…
Best Neighborhood Grocery
It’s no secret that Austinites love organic foods, local produce, and international specialties. They also love the local groceries that bring them these items. Fresh Plus focuses on specialty items and freshly prepared snacks while also stocking traditional fare, and Wheatsville Co-op emphasizes organic, natural foods and made-to-order sandwiches without forgetting its customers’ familiar favorites.…
Best Shoes
A longtime Austin favorite, Sandy’s offers Ecco, Skechers, Doc Martens, Hush Puppy, and Vans, among so many other brands. A revolutionary sign-in service assures personal attention in an atmosphere of fun that makes shopping for kids’ shoes a breeze. From casual to dressy, this cavernous store will have exactly what you want for the younger…
Best Local Website – News
News8Austin.com continues the be the place Austinites and those interested in Austin click on to find out what’s happening now in Austin. With up-to-the-minute news weather, traffic, sports, and info, the website is chock-full of fun and informative places to go in a user-friendly manner – very much like the television station for which it’s…
Best Bike Ride
Thanks to Lady Bird Johnson’s initial efforts, these 10 miles of wide trails, beautiful trees, thoughtfully placed water fountains, stretch and exercise areas, and lakeside breeze, continue to receive resounding approval from bike dabblers and hardcore cyclists alike. The nomenclature of this beloved recreation pathway is up for a change. The lovers of these trails…
Best Swimming Pool
Man and nature joined forces in the beginning of the 20th century, creating a euphoric summer blessing known as Deep Eddy. With a clean cement finish and spring-fed water like Barton Springs (but at a fourth of the size), the oldest pool in Austin is a little slice of heaven in the Texas heat. With…
Best Nonprofit Group
It’s the kind of place you hope you won’t ever need, but if you or a loved one do, you’ll realize how profoundly they can improve the quality of life by providing low- to no-cost physical and emotional support and services for persons living with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and hepatitis C. The Wright House is the…
Best Hair Salon
Aziz has practically everything to treat your body and soul and for nearly 35 years has been a salon to be reckoned with. Noted for their hospitality and complete haircare services (including deep-conditioning, styling, extensions, and chemical restructuring), the creative and diversely talented staff at Aziz assures that your cut and color exceed your expectations.
Best Comic Book Store
In the year that Captain America died, Austin Books helped keep comics alive and thriving. And in their 30th year, they’ve continued their stock policy proving that comics aren’t just superheroes, chibi manga, and the odd zombie. With racks of contemporary, political, and personal graphic novels right by the door that emphasize the literary over…
Best New-Car Dealership
Unlike the usual polished mausoleum where the salesmen lurch toward you like the living dead, the friendly folks at Howdy are alive and well, indeed. Dedicated to finding you the right car at the right price, they pledge to treat their customers like they would their own parents. Maybe that’s why you’ll be driving away…
Best Couple o’ Restaurateurs
Emmett Fox has always been the kind of chef who likes to wander the floor to make sure his diners are happy. While working at the Wild Goose in Boston, he met Lisa, who was dining with a few of her friends and “invited her back for dinner.” She took him up on his offer,…
Most Fabulously Affordable Breakfast Burritos
Growing disillusioned by the lack of originality, finesse, and/or love slapped between your morning tortilla? Look no further. The breakfast burritos at family-run La Cocina de Consuelo are there to get you out of your rut. One of these fabulous grande burritos is a whole meal in itself. The generous burrito includes the choice of…
Best Gay 3-Year-Old
It’s rare for a cold type venture to survive these days of hot ether. And this winner did it in a most unconventional way. Shout, a glossy-paper monthly (how positively old-school!), is locally published and broadly distributed across Texas, mostly in gay-friendly retail outlets and restaurants and, of course, gay bars in Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth,…
Best Garden to Sit and Watch the Skyscrapers Grow
Nowhere in Downtown is the soil more fecund than near Republic Square Park, and it won’t be long before the park’s longest shadows aren’t cast by its trees. Strange photosynthesis happens here, as if chlorophyll fused with glass and steel and cement and electricity to create structures that burst through the canopy. The 360 Condominiums,…
Best Doorway
“Abandon all hope all ye who enter here.” OK, so maybe the entrance to West Fifth’s Prague is not as ominous as the gates of hell, but it’s still pretty damn cool in a fire and brimstone kind of way. With the frame – a wrought-iron crosshatch resembling some Dantean lynch gate – leading to…
Most Glamorous Fashion Event
Among the dozens of annual fashion-related events, the Beauty of Life, a benefit for Hospice Austin, goes beyond the run-of-the-mill fashion show. With guests such as Finola Hughes from the Style Network’s How Do I Look? and the winner of season two of Project Runway, Chloe Dao, the Beauty of Life benefit, founded by Hospice…
Best Government Defender of Open Government
Accountability requires secrecy to be limited, and the attorney general fought an important battle last year to make sure there’s still some light being shed. The Department of Public Safety claimed that Capitol security-camera footage had to be kept secret because it might help “the terrorists.” Abbott rejected their claim and stood by his decision,…
Most Iconoclastic Neighborhood Association
The Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association has dared to break the conventional mold for neighborhood associations. Where others reflexively fight infill development and growth, DANA has stepped into a centrist position of embracing well-designed projects, however tall, that advance community values and “the economic and cultural benefits of a vibrant, densely-populated Downtown.” As such, DANA is…
Best (Glassy) Blow Job for Spectators
How could we resist such prurience when some standard operating equipment in the field includes the “glory hole” and the “lip wrap” (rods and blow-hoses notwithstanding). You’ll have to ask the gleeful gaffers at Glassy Knoll about all that, though. All’s we know is they got mad skillz. If you’ve ever wondered how that gleaming,…
Friendliest Thrift Store
“Sweetie,” “darlin’,” “sugar,” and “dear” are all names you should expect to be called upon entering the time warp that is St. Vincent de Paul’s Thrift Store. “We pray, we party, and we cry together,” says manager Paul (no relation to St. Vincent) of his staff of 63. Since 50 of these staff members are…
Point Austin: Here They Come!
With the November kickoff approaching, the municipal candidates begin to emerge
Best Sign
Serving up a chuckle with your Mexican martinis, the staff at El Arroyo, aka “the Ditch,” has been gracing your commute down West Fifth with timely witticisms on their outdoor marquee for years now. From LOL to thought-provoking, even informative, the signs have helped TCU fans to the game: “This is Memorial Stadium” and “Free…
Best Visual Artist
His cartoon-style artwork – replete with booze-swilling cats, homeless savants, and things that go happily bump in the graffitied night – brightens the walls of alleyways and galleries alike, whether in Austin, in L.A., or beyond. Is he big in Japan? No bigger than he is in Austin, where his post-Camp Fig stature continues to…
Best Movie Theatre
When the original Alamo on Colorado locked its doors for the last time on June 27, a collective tear glistened in the eye of Austin’s film community. But the spirit of founders Tim and Karrie League’s dream of a modern grind-house lives on: in their indie-tastic multiplexes; in their loving, ongoing renovation of the old…
Best Outdoor Dining
Walking under a melt of sunlight to a shady waterin’ hole for a chicken-fried steak and ranch salad … we’d say that’s about as Texas as it gets. Under the spreading pecan trees, the appropriately named Shady Grove walks the walk – or more precisely, chills the chill (Shady Thang margarita? Yes, please) – and…
Best Sports Program
Are the kids driving you crazy at home? Or maybe they’re driving the librarians up the bookshelves. (They’re not babysitters; you realize this?) Here’s an idea: WAYA. As in the West Austin Youth Association. Cheap memberships and more than 30 different sports and activities for every age group. Sign up the whole family for a…
Best Locally Produced TV Show
Before there was the festival, there was the show. Since 1976, Austin City Limits has showcased Texas artists and other performers of America’s music from country, blues, and folk to rock & roll, bluegrass, and zydeco. Bringing us everyone from Willie Nelson to Death Cab for Cutie, Ray Charles to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jerry Lee…
Best Bowling Alley
Dollar Mondays, legendary chili-cheese enchiladas, trophies spanning vintage triumphs – all mere accoutrements to the reason bowlers of all ages stick with Dart Bowl. Simply put, it’s the best, no-frills game you’re going to get, offering up clean lanes, fast balls, and cold beer for the little Lebowski in all of us.
Best Tennis Court
Despite tennis’ rep as a genteel sport, public courts can bring out the worst: yelling over loose balls, bad calls, obnoxious patter. Never at the South Austin Tennis Center, where the play is neighborly. The leagues are relaxed but competitive and entertaining. Loving tennis is the bottom line. So, here, when your double faults trail…
Best Scandal
It’s rare that Texas is faced with a real constitutional crisis. But did Speaker Tom Craddick break the rules in how he ran the House? Supporters say he was just keeping those rowdy reps in line. Opponents called him a dictator. At the moment, it’s all in the hands of Attorney General Greg Abbott, whose…
Best Landscaping
What did Austin look like before Big Red Sun? Who cares – all we know is that they revolutionized the landscape. Experts in outdoor design and construction, owners Selena and Dylan Souders worked wonders on San José Hotel, Austin City Lofts, and the Pedernales Lofts, as well as the homes of Shawn Colvin, Anne Elizabeth…
Best Computer Store
The Apple Store is more than a great display of geek-chic gadgetry; its friendly staff is there to help you become the master of your Mac. Whether you go to the Genius Bar for hands-on technical support or for one-on-one training with your own personal computer whisperer – there’s help to meet any schedule on…
Best Pet Store
Another winner in the battle against the big-box stores, Bark ‘n Purr’s multiple wins in this category show Austin’s penchant for local, friendly, and knowledgeable service. For more than 50 years, this North Central establishment has been taking care of our pets’ needs, and we, in turn, honor them for doing so.
Best Cup of Joe With a Side of Neighborhood Association
When this Eastside coffee shop opened up at the Pedernales, residents and retailers breathed a sigh of relief that the dream of convenient coffee was finally realized. No one counted on the hurricane of activity and community empowerment that would come along with it. Saturday morning cartoons? Pole-dancing lessons? Benefit concerts? Neighborhood open mics? This…
Most Underrated Brisket and Chicken
This sweet li’l family-operated joint is so convenient to our commute and so high on our A-list. Yet it’s so unassuming – stuck at the end of a wacky strip mall right next to the gas station mecca that is the intersection of MLK and Springdale – that we always forget to share the love.…
Best Indefatigable Spirit to Keep Public Access TV Alive
The heyday of public access TV is over. Or is it? To hear Linda Litowsky and Garry Wilkison talk, you could almost forget the long and checkered history of Austin’s access TV before they earned the contract from the city, moved in, rolled up their sleeves, and went to work – lots of it -…
Best Hole
Since the 1920s, Central Texans have been enjoying the cool clear waters of Cypress Creek, hidden in a small canyon on the edge of Wimberley. Often included on lists of the best swimming holes in Texas, this section of the tree-lined creek is best known for its Norman Rockwell-esque rope swings and family atmosphere. If…
Best Homegrown History
Damian and Trina Mandola’s Italian Market restaurant, on the west (Lamar) side of the Triangle, was an instant hit from its opening moments. The delectable pastries (cannolis to die for, napoleons to kill for), zingily fresh paninis, and fresh deli food of all kinds draw a daily crowd. A less obvious attraction is the Wall…
Most Multiple Multimedia Idea
“We come to the table or leave it a connection of friends with different skills,” Monofonus founder Morgan Coy tells us. “In this individualist culture, I like the idea of a community behind everybody.” His concept is to package some local combination of prose, music, visual art, and film with each release: In a couple…
Best Guardians for Keeping SoCo Locally Owned
Love him or loathe him: Güero’s owner Rob Lippincott, along with his partners Abe Zimmerman and Stan Biderman, worked closely with neighborhood associations to make the ’04 development at 1400 S. Congress acceptable to residents. Further, they refused offers from national chains to set up shop, in order to promote local businesses. Lippincott, Zimmerman, and…
Most Sincere Embodiment of Old Austin
An Alabama native who’d gone AWOL during Vietnam to cut a record with some buddies, Brooks Brannon was primed for the whole cosmic-cowboy scene when he hit town in 1976 – just in time to play at the Soap Creek Saloon and befriend a who’s who list of Austin icons. Later, he took up residence…
Best Auditory Heaven
Never mind the big-box stores with 1,000 multipiece systems all from the same mold. If you love the sound of music when it comes across warm, clear, and true, there’s a system at Whetstone with your name on it. Isoblue! Rega! Cyrus! Music to an audiophile’s ears – but without the snooty snottiness. A treat…
Most Homey yet Chic Grocery
From a quick snack to fully prepared meals, Cissi’s team of chefs, caterers, food artists, food aficionados, foodies, and food dreamers makes this shop a gallery of edible art. With beer, wine, coffee, skin care, custom gift baskets you can order online, and household items that you won’t find at Target, Cissi’s purveys its goods…
Beside the Point
In the spirit of ‘BoA,’ BTP presents Best of What’s Happening at City Council This Week
Vanaja
Unlike the Bollywood films most mainstream audiences expect from India, Vanaja operates on a far more realistic level, with the added bonus of a melodramatic story that’s a real heartbreaker.
Best Street
It’s like watching your baby grow up, SoCo is, with original Austin restaurants (Home Slice Pizza, Mars, Botticelli’s, Woodland, etc.), boutiques (Pink, Wet, etc.), antique shops (Uncommon Objects, Off the Wall), toy stores (Kid Genius; Monkey See, Monkey Do), markets (Farm to Market, Cissi’s Market), and spots just for chillaxing (whew!). Sometimes, sitting on a…
Best Annual Festival
We’ll deal with the diaper rash and heat stroke. We’ll even take that dust storm and turn it into lemonade. Why? Because we adore our annual outdoor music festival, all just an easy stroll across the fields of Austin’s favorite park, where you can manage to lose even yourself in the colorful crowd of skin…
Best New Club
A club so hot it should have spontaneously combusted by now – the Belmont is modern and chic while taking guests on a stroll through Palm Springs with the Rat Pack, circa 1961. Sip a mai tai on the Palm Terrace overlooking the patio while watching the suave live band, or plan a party in…
Best Place to Meet for Lunch
From the original on Lamar, the local coffee minichain has become as much a part of Austin as guitars and bats – there’s even a Java at City Hall! Now, with their soon-to-open outlet at the airport, Austin Java’s rich, dark brews and oh-so-scrumptious all-day menu could be the first stop for visitors flying in…
Best Summer Distraction
The Austin summer is one big, sweaty armpit. It’s three-showers-a-day and still smelling like a cab seat. Where can you go when your air conditioner’s just not getting it done? What can any sane person be doing when every movement outside feels like exhaustion? Get wet! Go swimming. We’ve got Barton Springs, blessed by Buddhist…
Best Morning Radio Show
Not enough rock in your morning routine? Then your alarm clock isn’t set for The Morning X with Jason and Deb (ex of Mix 93’s JB & Sandy), which immediately has you lip-syncing on your pillow, raging from the minute you wipe the sleep from your peepers. Alternative rock, newbies with flair, and just get-you-up…
Best Community Garden
You don’t know dedication until you’ve visited the Sunshine Gardens in Central Austin. This community of gardeners, one of the largest in the nation, toils in the Texas heat to maintain their bountiful refuge. For decades green thumbs have flocked to Sunshine’s pastures and continue to honor the surrounding area with the fruits of their…
Best View
The place formerly known as Antoinette’s Leap is not only the highest point in the city, but surely it’s the most romantic. The views and vistas, day or night, dazzle the eye, and the legend of the beauty who leaped to her death after her lover was killed by Indians adds a Hollywood touch that’s…
Best Scenester/Mover and Shaker
Who can turn the world on with her smile? Who can take a nothing lesbian scene and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile? Why it’s Kitty, grrrl, and you should know it, because if you’re not on her list of more than 2,000 local women who are interested in happenings of interest to women who…
Best Laundromat
Chlorofluorosulphurwhat? Not here. Never worry again about that chemical smell (or what went in the water) when you get your laundry back from these enviro-preserving wash-and-fold experts. It may look like the by-the-pound cleaners your grandma knew, but their low-pollution detergents provide an eco-friendly way to get your clothing sparkling.
Best Convenience Store
With such a vast selection of beers and wines and gourmet snackalicious goodness, it’s no wonder why Whip In continues to win over our readers. Keeping Austin weird, fed, hydrated, and happy for 21 years, this is truly one place seared deep in our collective hearts. If only there were a Whip In in every…
Best Exercise for Your Brain
It’s worth going just to hear the clever team names (MoPac Shakur!), but if you want a chance at winning, brush up on your table of elements, phobias, and pretty much everything to do with Ireland. This pub quiz features seven rounds of 10 questions, including one theme round. Mayor Will Wynn even drops by…
Best Doughnut for No Dough
Entering its 60th year of business, this Airport Boulevard institution still mints fresh doughnuts and delicious fritters through all hours of the night. Their drive-through is convenience personified – but for the full effect, order inside, where the aroma of hot oil and sugary dough permeates the air. Either way, with fresh doughnuts made at…
Best Community Child Care
The “Little School of the Soul” nearly became collateral damage in the battle between Las Manitas Avenue Cafe and the Marriott Corp. over the restaurant’s site on Congress. Its existence as the only Downtown preschool, multi-ethnic at that, has always been precarious, but it continues its nurturing commitment under the threat of the developer’s wrecking…
Best Iraq War Insight and Play-by-Play
A locally based program broadcasting in Austin, streaming and podcasting worldwide online, Anti-War Radio offers high-caliber commentary and guest interviews on the ongoing Mideast misadventure. Host Scott Horton, armed to the teeth with little-reported news and info, jettisons the pleasantries and PC radio lingo and tells listeners how it really is. As an added bonus,…
Best New Recruit
Who better to fill the empty Nikes of coaching legend Jody Conradt than this Blue Devil-turned-Lady Longhorn? Goestenkors – Coach G, for short – is suited up to lead her first season with the UT women’s basketball team, after taking Duke’s formidable b-ball ladies to 13 consecutive NCAA tournaments. The Lady Longhorns open the season…
Best House in West Campus
This huge, nutty structural masterpiece was built in the 1890s and was originally a boarding house located at the northwest corner of Guadalupe and 32nd before being moved west several blocks sometime in the late Sixties or early Seventies. A kitchen and central air were added, and the wraparound porch was removed. This created the…
Best Argument for Expansion
Austin’s current condo crop circle may be hard to stomach, but End of an Ear’s recent expansion is true cosmic bliss for music geeks. The 2-year-old South First outpost tore down the wall this summer, moving into the space left by neighbor Vanilla Girl and allowing extremely knowledgeable and helpful owners Blake Carlisle and Dan…
Best Hammers of Justice
If you had a hammer, would you hammer in the morning? Would you hammer in the evening? All over this land? Well, Austin Pride Build could sure use your hammer to help raise the roof of a house that they are building for a nice local grandmother named Marta, in hopes of moving her in…
Best (Nontoxic) Hand Job
If all that stands between you and a clean house is a complete and utter aversion to all things chemical and chemically scented, then All This by Hand’s holistic housecleaning is the ticket for you. Run by husband-and-wife team Brandon and Kimberly Littleton, All This by Hand uses only natural cleaning products that leave your…
Best Bike Handle-Horns
Rene Martinez’s fame started to grow when he replaced the handlebars of an old cruiser bicycle with a pair of longhorn steer horns just for fun. Who would have thought the style would become the new chic of bicycle accessories? Martinez’s little Eastside bike shop that specializes in low-rider bikes built from kits became famous…
Shadiest Ladies
Call it yard sale lighting syndrome: You’ve nabbed an amazing, surely one-of-a-kind lamp for $3. Now try to find a shade for it. Thankfully, the lighting mavens at the Tudorishly named Lamp Shoppe are there to help. They stock a huge range of shades in all the classic shapes, sizes, and colors, and their helpful…
Wrecking Ball Stages Surprise Attack in Tarrytown
City does demolition job on Reed Hall, neighborhood morale
Feel the Noise
In this overstuffed movie, an aspiring Harlem rapper finds his artistic calling and homeland pride with Puerto Rico’s reggaeton.
Best Window Display
Maybe Blackmail owner Gail Chovan loses sleep searching for her next inspiration, bending the question, “How much can you really do with the color black?” So much. Head-to-head with Gail’s daring, artsy, award-winning designs are some poignant displays flittering in By George’s windows. Sometimes the clothes speak for themselves, acting as a megaphone, catching the…
Best Bar Ambience
Think Vegas. Not old-lady, slot-machine-pinging, liter-margarita-in-a-commemorative-beaker Vegas. Think Peter Lawford in a slim-cut suit and Angie Dickinson in a spangled cocktail sheath. Intimate yet spacious, the Belmont with its many lounging and dining areas has become the Downtown mecca and Austin’s coolest watering hole. Generously sized cocktails and crooning music attract a typically diverse crowd,…
Best Place to Drink Alone
Johnny Cash drank alone. He sat in the corner, smoking cigarettes ’til yellow-fingered, sipping stiff fingers of well whiskey, wearing some black. Probably some boots. Cash, he’d be right at home at the Mean-Eyed Cat, not even because the bar’s name is an homage to some of his lyrics. Cash knows that drinking alone makes…
Best Place to Take a First Date
Is it the lush patio? The tinkling of the piano when you’re nestled in a cozy booth? Or maybe it’s just their divine arrabbiata? Whatever the secret is, Romeo’s has got it in spades. Definitely kitschy with red-and-white checkered tablecloths, red hurricane candles, and plastic grapes hanging from a lattice ceiling, the warm atmosphere of…
Best Teen Hangout
Best Party Place, Best Arcade, and Best Teen Hangout make Main Event a popular destination for many people and many reasons. A safe, well-maintained, and well-staffed environment offering bowling; billiards; laser tag; giant arcades with more than 100 video, virtual, interactive, and redemption games (including a secured “mature” section for those of appropriate age); glow…
Best Photographer
From his exquisite portraiture to photographing the rock royalty of Austin (and those who pass through), the images captured by regular Chronicle contributor Todd V. Wolfson reveal a facet of their subjects that the subjects themselves might not have known. A regular on the scene that he covers, Wolfson does far more than photographing the…
Best Day Trip – Dry
Enchanted Rock brings out a Texan’s pride. We’re not exactly sure which came first, the giant rock or the Earth, but we sure do love climbing the damn thing! This enormous, pretty-‘n’-pink granite rock/mountain is utterly astonishing with its endless slopes, hidden caves, and mysterious, majestic beauty. It’s enough to quiet even the kids with…
Best Activist
Any legislator who can say no to Bettie Naylor should be ashamed. At the very least they should take a break from the bad job they are doing and re-examine their purposes in life, because this frisky octogenarian and effective political ally is wise beyond her years and could show them all a thing or…
Best State Legislator
So Mr. Watson went to Austin. Texas Monthly called him rookie legislator of the year, because when our former mayor moved into his office in the Capitol complex, he acted like, well, a senator. As vice chair of the prestigious and powerful Transportation and Homeland Security Committee, he helped keep some sanity in the toll-road…
Best Movers
Keeping Austinites on the move since 1988, veteran “BOA” winner Blue Whale do more than just pack ’em up and move ’em out. In addition to residential and commercial moving services, they also offer cleaning and make-ready specials, as well as space in their 23,000-square-foot storage facility. New to the poll this year, Heavenly Care…
Best Drugstore/Pharmacy
Edging out some local faves, the big chain takes your praises for the second time. With more than 40 locations in and around Austin (some 24-hour pharmacies), Walgreens takes care of prescription needs and a thousand other things, from lawn chairs to hairspray to Easter candy.
Best Happy-Hour Prices
Beyond the song-selection in the jukebox, things haven’t changed much inside Deep Eddy Cabaret since it became a bar in 1951. This lends itself to the eclectic charm of the cabaret’s patrons: Patrons, from Tarrytown socialites to Deep Eddy lifeguards to borderline alcoholic yeggs, drink side-by-side here nightly, bonded by booze. How could you not…
Best Event Venue Host With the Most
Regardless of what kind of event you are planning at either of Threadgill’s distinctive party facilities, director of operations Dave Whitney will make sure things go right. Whether it means solving last-minute weather-related problems for a Texas Wine & Food Festival tasting luncheon or offering technical support to a star-studded musical fundraiser for out-of-work restaurant…
Best Dawg-Gone Time for Kid and Dog
The concept is simple and brilliant. Take your dog and child. Put them in the car. Drop them off at a place that is fun, educational, and loving. Relax. Come back later to pick them up only to discover both are exhausted from learning and playing too hard. Drive home, and encourage child and dog…
Best Local Online Show
Filmmaker René Pinnell (nephew of legendary filmmaker Eagle Pennell) has been teamed up with Mitch Baker and David Bewley since 2005, when he directed their sketch-comedy pilot for MTV, The Edmond Bulldogs. After the network passed on the pilot (perhaps in favor of Date My Mom), the sketch troupe was picked up by ONNetworks.com, a…
Best Park in Need of a Champion
Won’t someone adopt this historic 1839 public square? To realize its potential as a stellar Downtown people space, Wooldridge Square needs a leading champion or two – and lots of stakeholders – who can devote time, resources, and powers of persuasion to rally a major park renovation and raise $500,000 to fund it. Revitalizing this…
Best Landscape Design
Ask anyone what they love about Austin, and they’re sure to rattle off odes to our parks and wide-open spaces. For that, we thank this landscape-design team. The brains behind the beauty of the new Town Lake Park, Dell Children’s Medical Center, both the Capitol and Laguna Gloria’s historic restorations, and Hyatt Regency Lost Pines…
Best Argument for Expansion II
Yo. If, like us, you’ve long harbored a burning desire to force perfect strangers to dance like Balki on an Ecstasy-and-Red Bull bender but only knew of “wheels of steel” as an old Saxon song, your time has arrived, along with your “wheels” (aka turntables); your new, improved vinyl collection; and – d’oh! – your…
Best Hope for the Future
Although newly appointed Austin Police Department Chief Art Acevedo has only been in town – officially, that is – for a few months now, he’s already done what police chiefs before him could only hope to do (or perhaps never thought to do, or maybe never thought possible): He’s earned the respect and support of…
Best A-List-iest PR Firm
You may have heard the name “Blanton” before, but you’ve never met a Blanton like powerhouse Pam. Blanton Public Relations has handled Ray Benson’s annual birthday bash benefiting the Austin Music Foundation, the Austin City Limits Music Festival VIP Grove, Coldplay’s end of U.S. tour party, and the Austin Film Festival. Current clients include Lamberts,…
Best Clip Joint
It is hard to believe that a pair of nail clippers would be considered a dangerous weapon, but after September 11, 2001, it was added to a list of banned items like knives, box cutters, scissors, toy guns, and knitting needles that were confiscated from carry-on luggage at the nation’s airports. Where do all these…
Best of Austin 2007
Tattooed Love … Grrrl When “Best of Austin” cover gal and Best Tattoo Artist Karen Slafter was a young girl, she would draw tattoos on herself and imagine life as a painter. She arrived in Austin to attend UT, an 18-year-old self-described “baby punk rocker,” hellbent on total immersion in the local music scene all…
FLDS Sect Thriving in West Texas
Despite leader Warren Jeffs’ legal woes, group’s gated compound in Eldorado reportedly growing
We Own the Night
Joaquin Phoenix is dynamic, Mark Wahlberg subdued, and Robert Duvall trusty in this otherwise redundant story about brothers on opposite sides of the law.
Best Architect
There’s nothing little about saying your home was designed by Emily Little. Little and her partners, Stephen Levy and Paul Clayton, have protected historic landmarks like the Texas State Cemetery, the moonlight towers, and the J.P. Schneider store and have still found time for cutting-edge design like 707 Cardinal. They’ve been thinking green since before…
Best Actor/Actress
She’s got more talent than a carbonated beverage has bubbles and makes us go all fizzy just watching her step onto a stage. Whether she’s cracking wise as Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Molly Sloan in Salvage Vanguard’s Intergalactic Nemesis, re-enacting the curly onslaught of puberty with the St. Idiot Collective, or showing improv comedians how it’s…
Best Bar Staff
Little Woodrow’s is a Texas chain that maintains a neighborhood-bar feel, where buxom beauties know your name. With three locations spread throughout Austin offering more than 100 beers, 30 on tap, anyone can take advantage of their ice-cold seasonal drafts and noteworthy service. Attentive and cheerful down-home Texas girls serving you a cold-one: Nothing wrong…
Best Place to Find a Lover
Is that an organic, locally produced squash in your basket, or are you just pleased to see me? If you want to know what lies in a hottie’s heart, look what they’re putting on their plate, which is likely to be pretty healthy here. And you could always invite them for a quick gelato on…
Best Restaurant Food Trend
Everyone knows organic is orgasmic. But if you’re chomping on a pesticide-free apple from Australia, think of all the fuel burned getting it onto your plate. Not so eco-friendly now, eh? But chefs are increasingly mixing organic food with a good measure of locally grown produce. Voilà! Eco-friendly eats when you dine out, not just…
Best Texas Amusement Park
A quick trip to any of the three wet-and-wild Schlitterbahns that dot our fair state is just a click away: The Travel Channel consistently rates them tops and always seems to have them featured. Much of the technology that whooshes throughout so many of the country’s waterslide attractions was developed by Schlitterbahn tenders, the Henry…
Best Public Access TV Show
Watching public-access TV feels sometimes like you’re in another country watching religious rituals, but these independent faves are true Austin. Our homespun conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and the creator of the Austin Movie Show Jegar Erickson are both at home with this low-budget format. The realistic lighting and audio complement both Jones’ one-on-one-style rants about…
Best Day Trip – Wet
Let’s see: an awe-inspiring grotto with a waterfall or a breathtaking spring-fed creek with a waterfall? One was born of an ancient sunken cave (Hamilton), and the other is privately owned, with rocky slabs perfect for sunbathing or watching the line of kids take on the rope swing (Krause). Our readers can’t decide either. Why…
Best Capitol Character
According to Lege lore, in person and socially, Smilin’ Tom is one of the nicest people with whom you could hope to talk state business. But once that House gavel is in his hand, it’s Tough Guy Tom all the way. His interpretation of House rules was widely seen as a dictatorial power grab, but…
Best Visionary
What a year it’s been for Susan McDowell. A visionary, you deemed her. Her kids at LifeWorks would do the same. Her work provides support and care for troubled youths and families, filling in the cracks where most of these kids would usually fall. Truly, no child left behind. McDowell, voted one of Austin’s top…
Best Pedicure/Manicure
Oh, your neglected feet. With you through thick and thin, supporting your side steps, double-steps, missteps. So, when you want a pedicure, you want to open up the vulnerability of your feet, touching places that go unnoticed for so long. That’s what Polish Nail Spa does best. Spoiling. It’s the perfect environment to allow a…
Best Fantasy/Gaming Store
More than just comics & fantasy retail outlets, Dragon’s Lair Comics and Ninja Pirate are gaming community centers. They offer lock-ins, tournaments, and movie nights, as well as everything from troll-blood kits to stock for your role-playing-game survival. Pretty evenly matched, both get primo experience points for great comic selections and knowledgeable staff. And all…
Best Independent AIDS Fundraiser
Sixteen years and still growing strong, Oilcan Harry’s legendary bartender Steve Higginbotham produces this hot summer event in memory of his former partner. Raising $18,000 this year alone, Red Hot has hit the $250,000 mark and donates its proceeds to Project Transitions. A hot auction and a cool cocktail do the trick every time.
Best Food in a Mini-Mall
It can be a problem in this town, all the delicious restaurants tucked into low, unpromising stretches of commercial properties known as mini-malls. What’s tantalizing about a mini-mall? Not much. But believe it or not, there are some treasures out there. Sarah’s Mediterranean Grill & Market is at the top of the heap, with chicken…
Best Ghoul
Mr. Creep (or Creeps to his friends) isn’t just some guy who runs around a haunted house going “woooooh!” to scare the kids. As the regular scarer-in-chief at the House of Torment, he’s spent years refining his zombie chic, spending as much time keeping the line enthralled and handing out spooky candies to the kiddies…
Best Micromedia Maven
What started out as a collection of neighborhood publications (La Voz de Dove Springs, La Voz de Montopolis, La Voz de East Austin) soon merged into a single, bilingual publication devoted to the community it serves with an eye on the past and great expectations for the future. Next to an ad for spiritual card…
Best Public Gym Run out of a Garage
The first thing you’ll notice about the Harmon Street Gym is the roof: a myriad of nylon beer signs fashioned into a canopy over the second-story, open-air boxing facility. What you see is far from what you’ll get. Transformed from a multicar garage into a tough guy’s (and gal’s) dream come true, don’t expect frills…
Best Moment of Zen That’s Not on ‘The Daily Show’
The change in direction of the swinging brass ball hanging from a steel cable is almost indiscernible. Called a Foucault (pronounced “foo-KOH”) pendulum after its designer, French physicist Léon Foucault, the device was conceived in 1851 to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. This pendulum, about the size of a child’s balloon, hanging in the…
Best Bigfoot Hunters
Everyone’s weird in Austin. But there’s weird, and then there’s weeeird. So when Steve Busti said he was opening his P.T. Barnum-style cabinet of curiosities, complete with cyclopean pig, shrunken heads, and the mysterious egress, he was setting the warped bar of the weird pretty high. But if you can’t tell a feejee mermaid from…
Best Legacy of Triumph Out of Tragedy
After a 1989 drunken-driving accident left Fred Leon “Mitchie” Mitchell III severely injured at the age of 3, he and his mother, Joyce Adejumo, made it their mission to prevent the same tragedy from reaching other families. They lobbied hard to tighten drunken-driving laws and their successes include: 1993 Senate Bill 1 that requires immediate…
Best Apple Computer Repair
Aside from car troubles and a medical emergency, there is nothing more discombobulating than a computer meltdown. The near absolute fact that a computer meltdown will occur at the most inconvenient moment only adds to the anxiety. Enter Shane Utley and his small but helpful crew at MacTronics. Professional, friendly, and Apple-certified, Utley will assess…
Best Design, Decor, and Style
Mercury Design Studio owner Steve Schuck has created a world of his own in the 2nd Street District. Noted for, among other things, an inventive and eclectic assortment of vintage furniture and accessories, as well as surprising gifts and small personal luxuries – colorful silk pillows, fun ceramics, fine leather goods, vintage jewelry, beautiful art…
Naked City
Quote of the Week “Beyond the obvious damage to Reed Hall, many have expressed to me their concern that significant damage has been done to their faith in the city process.” – John Donisi, president of the Heritage Society of Austin, on the surprise demolition of the former home of preservationist Roberta Crenshaw Headlines •…
Michael Clayton
This smart and thoroughly entertaining film asks the question of where a lawyer’s ethical responsibility to zealously represent a client ends and the societal interest in achieving justice begins.
Best Bathroom
A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet? Yes. Is that still true … in the bathroom? Yes. So says Vivo, where the sinks are filled with ice and the floral touches are as important as your hand-washing, sending wafts of sweet-smelling roses and orchids into your nose-powdering experience. Simple, unique elegance…
Best Art Gallery
Explore the works of a new female Texas artist every five weeks or so, with installations ranging from high-end crafters like Whitney Lee to world-class photographers like Iranian artist Soody Sharifi. The gallery focuses on one artist at a time, giving each full control of everything from wall color to room size, creating a beautifully…
Best Beer on Tap
Home of a mind-boggling selection of draft beer – international, seasonal, and oh so fresh! Taps seem to pour straight from the Bavarian alps, the Irish moors, or the mountains of the Czech Republic into a perfectly headed pint glass. They even commit the gorgeous heresy of mixing beers (beware the Snake Bite!). Word on…
Best Place to People Watch
Lady Bird Lake, the aqua artery of this fine city formerly known as Town Lake, draws an estimated 1.5 million people per year, mostly Austinites, from all walks of life to its cool breeze and inviting shade. People-watching, not only the proud activity of the bored and eccentric, is prime in the hike-and-bike bustle that…
Best Afterschool Activity
Thumbing through the alumni of KidsActing, one finds mentions of Broadway and your favorite CSI. So, think of their classes as an afterschool investment toward that big house or shiny Porsche you’ll get to buy, all silver-haired, and selling old pictures to the paparazzi down the line. Babysitter begone, because you’ll be out catching your…
Best Toys
Caution! This Terra is an endless and exciting toy amusement park, where persons big or small may lose hours (or their minds!) checking out the various themed areas: the doll section, the Hello Kitty section, puzzle section, board-game section, boy section, girl section, baby section, etc. Phew! We overstimulated ourselves so much we had to…
Best Radio DJ
Sometimes, talking shit in the morning can be too much. Not enough caffeine or sleep or snooze buttons. But, with 101X’s smartass deejay Jason Dick in your ear, it seems like a wake-‘n’-bake on a sunny day. Giggling before you realize you’re too tired to chuckle. Too bad you’re going into work, because the redheaded…
Best Fitness Classes
Sweating flexibility is their thing – stress-relief and the disappearance of that bad office-chair posture. From slumped over to open-chest proud. They started small but have grown into a handful of locations all over town. With more than 100 teachers offering 300 classes weekly, Yoga Yoga lights the path to those divine moments where we…
Best Citizen
This Austin couple has given money, time, and effort to SafePlace, People’s Community Clinic, the Salvation Army, the National Association of Hospital Hospitality Houses, and dozens more good causes in Texas and beyond. This year, their commitment to community was defined not just by giving a permanent home to the Austin Children’s Shelter on the…
Best Appliance/TV Repair
A popular readers’ choice for good reason, these local magicians have been throwing fix-it mojo on all manner of electronics here since 1978. Diagnostics will run you $25, a fee that can be applied to the cost of the repair. Be patient; repairs take about three weeks, but they’ll give you a date and stick…
Best Printer/Copies
Once again beating the chain stores, No. 1 for copies and printing in Austin is the locally owned and operated Ginny’s Printing. Whether it’s digital printing services, offset printing, color or black-and-white copies, faxing, or even T-shirt printing, the very green Ginny’s can also cut, perforate, score, number, fold, laminate, collate, saddle stitch, bind, or…
Best Fashion Accessories
Girly, femme fatale, and sophisticated, all in one hip room. With the best-fitting jeans you’ve worn in your life, plus the cutest purses, earrings, shoes, and doodads, be sure to swing by the last Thursday of every month (7-9pm) for the ultimate in shopping: chair massages, wine, a DJ, munchies, and discounts. Now that’s shopping.
Best Monday Blues
Eastside blues dive T.C.’s Lounge is an Austin gem. They know how to start the week off right. Monday nights, the bar is packed – blues onstage and a tiny dance floor packed with a variety of faces, from hipster college kids to older folks from the neighborhood. The more the merrier, but it gets…
Best Grownup Food Trend
What started life on the left and right coasts as an inevitable outgrowth of cocktail-party kid-food has settled in our sweet city as anything but predictable. Birthdays, sticky fingers, buttercream comas, and, of course, Mom, are a few of the things that the people we asked reported as their first thought when they hear the…
Best Locally Made Fairy Princess Dresses
Designer Sunny Haralson and her company Ruby Pearl make chic dresses for women out of restyled vintage wear. The fairy princess dresses she designs for little girls (available exclusively at SoCo’s Vivid) are a big slice of heaven. Layers of tulle and gossamer fabrics in electric colors make your little princess feel like … well,…
Best Morning Jock Herder
Any woman who gets up at 4am every weekday in order to wrangle the guys on KLBJ-FM’s Dudley & Bob Morning Show (that is, managing the ever-effusive personalities of Dale Dudley, Bob Fonseca, and Charlie Hodge) definitely deserves recognition. Before Davis joined the show in 2001, things were getting a tad slow on the popular…
Best Record/CD Store
Remember in Empire Records when Warren whines at the record-store workers, “You think you’re so cool just because you work in a record store.” The Waterloo staff are those cool kids you’re jealous of, who work in the coolest record store and know the obscurest bands. It’s Waterloo, the quintessential Austin slack lair, where hours…
Best New Shade of Bronze
Until recently, the only historical figures commemorated in bronze at the University of Texas were white dudes – and mostly Confederate white dudes, at that. But these days, with Martin Luther King Jr. ensconced in the East Mall, a statue of Barbara Jordan slated for unveiling in 2009, and the brand-new statue of workers’ rights…
Best Creative Use of Three Small Trampolines
The song-and-dance power trio that is Lindsey Taylor, Nicole Whiteside, and Stanley Roy Williamson do for minitramps what OK Go did for treadmills but funnier, and that’s only part of the stunning kinesis they present in bars, back yards, stages, and parties all over the funkier parts of Austin. The gangly lead man’s got a…
Best Lobbyist Who’s Not in It for the Money
Persistence is this li’l lobbyist’s m.o. when trying to secure the very best delivery of public health care to the elderly and an estimated 1 million uninsured Texas kids. Such a monumental task requires educating the Legislature (an equally monumental task), of course. On that score, she, along with her peers at the Center for…
Best Flood Rescuers
Forget the names: The Austin Fire Department isn’t just there for fires, and the game wardens don’t just count squirrels. During this year’s unprecedented summer floods, both of these services rescued swimmers, boaters, and even unlucky hikers around Austin from the torrents. It came with a tragic cost, with the loss of Texas Game Warden…
Best Goth and Punk Clothes Less Than $30
26 Doors? Davenport Village? The Domain? Where’s a self-respecting goth girl to shop? Well, thank God for Secret Oktober. This veteran South Austin shop with fierce vintage fashions, vinyl-and-mesh hot pants, compacts shaped like bats, spiderweb necklaces, skull earrings, leopard coin purses, gargoyle T-shirts, stickers, patches, and pins – even goth-wear for infants and toddlers…
Thief Delivers Mailbox Blues
Some thief stole this family’s cool mailbox
The Darjeeling Limited
Wes Anderson boards another train of ironic whimsy, although this time the train is quite literal and not just the train of thought in his head.
Best Bed & Breakfast
This circa 1900 mansion boasts some strange bragging rights: the first azalea bushes in the city, the first home in Austin to have wall-to-wall carpet, and columns carved by a master stonemason bailed from Travis County booking by the home’s original owner. Imagine surprising your lover with a weekend getaway, omelets in bed, and then…
Best Clothing Designer
A local favorite among the SoCo set, Chia has many fans who insure multiple “Best of Austin” awards. Pink Salon and Boutique, among other retailers, can hardly keep Chia’s clothes in stock. From her signature kitty-hats to bags, halter tops, and children’s accessories, Chia designs have vast appeal in their naive charm.
Best Beer/Wine Prices
Next time you’re planning a party, don’t sacrifice choice on the altar of the dollar – stop at Spec’s, and get just the potion you want. A recent addition to the Austin hooch scene, this Houston-based shopper’s paradise is not just about the discounted domestics: They keep the cost low on everything from price-busting prize-winning…
Best Video/DVD Rental/Purchase
What could be better than being able to rent Cannibal Ferox, that shiny new transfer of Yojimbo, Pink Flamingos, and A Charlie Brown Christmas in one trip to the video store? Getting them on Vulcan’s two-for-one nights. With a nation-by-nation shelving policy, the two locations also serve as a pocket education in global cinema, from…
Best All-Ages Music Venue
Home to what has been called the best-positioned stage pillar in Texas, with its circus/motorcycle decor, Emo’s is still the mainstay for fans of all ages or 18 and over. Yeah, it looks like a barn, but for both the post-Hannah Montana and the pre-Manilow crowds, it’s sweet salvation. With many chill areas, outdoor cop-a-squats,…
Best Video Game Rental/Purchase
Need an excuse to not study? The staffers at both Game Crazy and GameStop can help. Might we recommend Halo 3 at a very reasonable price or last year’s John Madden experience for less cash than you’ll find in the couch of your parents’ basement? These gamer greats have been swapping this award for the…
Best Radio Station – Music
Whydaya suppose every time a B.B. King or a Neil Young rolls through town they find themselves behind a KGSR microphone? Well, they don’t know anything our “Best of Austin” voters don’t know already. When so much radio is centrally playlisted and straight out of the can, KGSR remembers it’s real people who make music.…
Best Gear/Sporting Goods
Going to the greenbelt to picnic? To Canyon Lake to drown a worm? Halfway up the Amazon? Or the Alps? Do the kids need track spikes? A new catcher’s mitt? A pitching wedge? Do you need a pitching wedge? That 9-iron in the bunker routine is a bit ridiculous, dontcha think? That’s a lot of…
Best City Official
Our affable, charming, and handsome mayor has legions of fans across the city, crossing party lines as well as socioeconomic lines. With a mission of controlled growth while helping Austin achieve its dazzling potential and preserving its natural beauty and inherent spirit, William Patrick Wynn’s second term has won him even more fans than his…
Best Auto Inspection Station
They’re fast, they’re polite, they’re thorough, and they open early. The ambitious soul can whip in to attend to their annual obligation and out before heading to work, but if you can’t make that, they’ll make it fast whenever you arrive.
Best Public Health Care
If an apple a day did keep the doctor away, this place would polish it for you. One of the longest-running independent primary-care facilities in the country making more than 75,000 appointments for uninsured Austinites, People’s Community Clinic is one of the factors that makes Austin so livable. Primary care is complemented by preventative programs…
Best Furnishings – Home
IKEA, the behemoth Scandinavian retailer, and Four Hands, the exotic import and manufacturing house with corporate headquarters in Austin, have won the hearts of our readers; each makes its first appearances in this poll, beating out some time-honored favorites. IKEA pleases the pocketbook with the simple-design approach of its exclusive lines, and Four Hands embraces…
Best VHS Throwback
For those who didn’t blink when the superior video-recording format, digital versatile disc, began to sweep the world in the late Nineties, for those who turned a blind eye when video stores began pushing VHS tapes off the shelves to make room for DVDs, the panic may be finally setting in: Your beloved video-home-system format…
Best Icon Digging Out of the Ashes
It seems that since March 7, when flames ripped Mother’s Cafe from our lives, the Hyde Park area has experienced a cloud of craving for tempeh enchiladas. The ironic accident of one homeless man’s quest for a steak has created a serious dearth of veggie delectables. In Mother’s absence, the health-food heart of Austin has…
Best Midweek Mingling for Toddlers Into Localization and Sustainability
Whether it’s the ample expanses of soft grassy surfaces, the easy-on-the-ears live music, the kid-friendly fountain, or the numerous vendors selling tasty tidbits, the Austin Farmers’ Market at the Triangle (where Guadalupe and Lamar meet north of 45th) has become a hot spot for the teething set and their hip, savvy parents. The market, open…
Best Person to Spend the Night With
From midnight through 5am, Miss Kitty’s Mix 94.7 radio show entertains the night owls with her own brand of sass, humor, gossip, info … and music, of course. Her infectiously effervescent voice regales listeners with her tales from a backstage vantage point, front-row fashion reports, and her off-air escapades at the multitude of parties and…
Best Shoe Selection
Nordstrom has won Best Shoe Selection ever since it opened. Frankly, with their reputation, they could have won a “Best of Austin” before they ever opened here. They’ve got it all, from Amalfi to Onitsuka Tiger to Western Chief. At Nordstrom, it’s not about whim, as in, “I want those shoes,” so much as it’s…
Best Patio Garden
Fai Jow, the owner of Ming’s Cafe, lovingly and carefully crafted this beautiful patio garden by hand. Through visits to five nurseries and following the advice of botanists and the principles of feng shui, he created a space that transports visitors far beyond this campus-area Guadalupe address. Being here makes patrons feel joyful and relaxed.…
Best Stroll in the Woods
From busy city street to calm, otherworldly nature, people who find themselves at Enchanted Forest must feel they’ve stepped through a portal to another time and place. Time slows, the air seems cleaner, and wonder awaits around every corner. Home and host to Austin’s beloved Art Outside series (returning in March ’08), the Forest also…
Best Neighborhood Gift to Austin
It may not keep its name very long – now that it’s on the shores of Lady Bird Lake – but a park by any other name will still be sweet. For two decades and in the middle of a pingpong tract of conflicting city priorities, the South Austin folks who dreamed of an engaged…
Best Free Thermal Massage
Jade balls heated with far infrared waves roll up and down your entire body as you recline, prone, on a Migun bed. In the demonstration center, you are welcome to lie down and let your woes melt away. Come every day of the week if you like free massages (around 20 minutes each), noon-7pm. The…
Best Little Flora House in Texas
Who can resist the lure of fine wine, lush designer bouquets, and chocolate? Flora & Fauna bets you can’t. Tucked away at the corner of Lamar and 12th, this romantic little shop serves up estate wines, microbeers, handmade gourmet chocolate, selected teas, gorgeous nibbly things, dreamy creamy body lotions, bath scrubs, and the steamiest cup…
The Common Law
Do trademark laws affect my local business?
Group Aims to Stop Handouts for Retail Developments
Petition effort seeks to prevent city from subsidizing retail projects
Broken
Heather Graham is an L.A. transplant whose dreams of a music career become soiled by her relationship with her junkie boyfriend, played by Jeremy Sisto.
Best Billboard
Originally created by Austin’s own Sherry Matthews Advocacy Marketing in 2001, this startling reminder to strap in makes its point as it tours Texas cities each year. For three months in each market, commuters are presented with a mangled, black 1996 Camaro, whose passenger and driver survived because, you guessed it, they buckled up. Fabulously…
Best Comedy Troupe
What do you get when a bunch of displaced NOLA kids start doing improv locally, gaining enough exposure and word-of-mouth to turn the ever-empty Space in to something useful: a place to laugh? You get ColdTowne, changing tragedy into comedy, their fate into a movement of laughter, right here in our lucky town. No one…
Best Beer/Wine Selection
Grape Vine stocks every beer available in our region and one of the largest selections of German and Italian wine in the country. Not enough? They also found it fit to stock one of the largest single-malt whiskey collections in the world. That’s a lot of fermented and distilled glory! Stuck on indecision? Leave it…
Best 24-Hour/Late
Fear not when the munchies monster attacks! We live in a real city, with options far from golden arches. The culinary freedom to choose between gingerbread pancakes or some wild stir-fry concoction 24 hours a day is the true cosmopolitan experience. The friendly staff at Magnolia Cafe is always on call with their mixture of…
Best Arcade
Best Party Place, Best Arcade, and Best Teen Hangout make Main Event a popular destination for many people and many reasons. A safe, well-maintained, and well-staffed environment offering bowling; billiards; laser tag; giant arcades with more than 100 video, virtual, interactive, and redemption games (including a secured “mature” section for those of appropriate age); glow…
Best Video/DVD Selection
Again. And with good reason. Vulcan rules the family-friendly video/DVD scene with one of the most eclectic yet comprehensive libraries in this part of the world. It’s not just for the budding cineaste among your brood who got into Kurosawa in the cradle. There’s a selection of kids classics for new junior viewers and your…
Best Radio Station – Talk/News
“To be the most trusted radio source for news and music in Central Texas,” that’s the UT-based, National Public Radio-affiliated broadcasters intent – and they live up to it with engaging, entertaining news programming from around the world and around the block. From the global pulse of BBC World Service: The Ticket and NPR’s All…
Best Gym/Fitness Facility
Wanna shift those love handles? But which gym? You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a workout joint. Well how about old favorite the YMCA? As tricked-out with the latest machinery as any ritzy ab-busting establishment, the exercise icon even comes with personal trainers these days. With so many locations, there’ll be one in…
Best Eco Improvement
A first for Texas, Austin CarShare is opening eyes to improve and inspire by way of another much cheaper transportation option – a taxi you drive. With online booking, variable rates, and convenient pickup sites around Central Austin, it’s ideal for bus riders, cyclists, and commuters alike. This program benefits not only each individual member…
Best Auto Service/Repair
Specializing in Hondas and Toyotas, employees at the Auto Depot limit themselves to nothing when it comes to cars. They sell ’em, service ’em, warranty ’em, and give ’em some good lovin’. Known for being straight-up, consistent, and on the consumer’s side, they have many a loyal customer and continue to draw more every year,…
Best Recording Studio
They’ve only been on the scene for four years, but what a four years. The music industry went digital, and the Brain Machine is on that tip. The latest technology, with three isolated recording studios, a fully automated digital mixing console, and all the latest recording suites. They even master tracks online, so the music…
Best Gardening Store
Gurus of the great green earth, Natural Gardener’s staff don’t fear getting their hands dirty to show you the garden path to enlightenment. From lovely ladybugs to pesky grubs, this is the place to learn how to get it done sans toxins. Rich with soil tips and blooming with annuals, perennials, and everything in between,…
Best Way to Dance Like Your Grandparents Did
Or, perhaps more like your great-grandparents did. The Austin Barn Dancers meet every Wednesday for an evening of contra dancing. Think square dancing but less complicated and more upbeat. Sure, at first glance you may wonder why on earth you came and how on earth you’ll remember the steps, but once you get started, you…
Best Picnic Food
What do you get when you wrap a whole chicken roasted to perfection, a grilled onion, tortillas, some awesome salsas, and limes in butcher paper? The best picnic ready to go in Austin. The whole-chicken meal, Pollo Entero, at Pollo Regio is out-of-this-world tasty. Its effortless and easy clean-up packaging makes this the perfect one-stop…
Best New Lease on Life Without a Mortgage
Out Youth is back, babies. And we better not hear anymore talk of doors closing forever. No, dude. That sucked. We suspect it won’t be a problem in the future, actually, as all that icky grown-up business of mortgages and executive directors and boards in disarray is a thing of the past. And it’s a…
Best Place to Hear Dr. Rachel Maddow
In the sea of pill-poppin’, faggot-spewin’, spin-belching conservoschmucks, Dr. Rachel Maddow rises to the crest, bobbing like a life-preserving buoy. Boy, oh boi. Good-lookin’ out dyke Maddow has become a hit, a commentator’s darling, if you will, on the TV talking-head-talk-show circuit. Her regular stints on Countdown With Keith Olbermann and guest slots with Tucker…
Best Thrift Store
At nearly every street corner, traffic light, and neighborhood shopping center in Austin, there seems to be a Goodwill. And that’s great news for our ridiculously cheap shopping pleasures (especially around this time of year, near Halloween). Yes, their goodies are über cheap. But Goodwill is really about all of the jobs created, just to…
Best Pay Phone Within 50 Miles
For the burgeoning anti-cell-phone crowd, nothing warms the cockles more than a functional pay phone – the best way to rage against the cellular machine. And if that rare, working pay phone is in a really cool phone booth (that hasn’t yet been converted into an automated teller machine), all the better. That said, the…
Best Way to Avoid Dysentery While Enjoying Björk
It’s that age-old dilemma that comes with outdoor concerts: How do you drink enough to stay hydrated, but not so much that you have to interact with nasty portable toilets? And then, inevitably, have to eat some sort of stand food with your hands? Imagine our delight each year in rediscovering that the Austin City…
Best New Crossover Hit
There couldn’t be a more fitting spot for it – dedicated to the heroic, cantankerous, generous woman who in January 1991, marched up Congress to the Capitol, bringing with her a whole new generation of Texans to the hallowed halls of power. Texans still fuss over the details of her political legacy – but in…
Best Immensely Talented Stylist in a Minuscule Salon
Though North Loop’s Good to Go Studio is likely smaller than some Westlake walk-in closets, it’s apparently enough room for stylist Robyn Zepeda to work magic with her customers’ uninspired mops. From nostalgic 1950s cuts to the edgiest styles you can conjure, the ever-upbeat Robyn has the skills to make it a reality on your…
Best Men’s Clothes
The new Mercury Mens Fashion House in South Austin brings unexpectedly edgy menswear to Austin with fresh new looks from Buckler menswear, Romain Kapadia, and Persona Non Grata that are virtually ignored by larger retailers. Not to be confused with the also-fabulous and equally as stylish “Best of Austin” award-winning Mercury Design Studio, this Mercury…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Tequila’s becoming more expensive, Americans are getting shorter, and more
Get Your Green On at Saturday Fest
City holds festival for people keen on green
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I is back for seconds in this melodramatic sequel that emphasizes how the Virgin Queen lusted in her heart.
Best Cemetery
For the worms at this impeccably groomed resting place, it’s only the best. The best Texans: governors, legislators, senators, congressmen, Confederates (lotsa of dead white guys and their wives) all lined up in reverie. Big Texas flags over here, smaller ones over there. And a landscaping crew that apparently never sleeps.
Best Composer
The maestro magic of Graham Reynolds is hard to define. He’s a composer, a collaborator, a bandleader, a pianist, a drummer, an everyman musician destined for the great masses. Whether scoring a blockbuster movie soundtrack or playing a local gig, one thing is certain: This is a man who makes sounds unlike any you’ve heard.…
Best Cheap Date Place
When the original Alamo on Colorado locked its doors for the last time on June 27, a collective tear glistened in the eye of Austin’s film community. But the spirit of founders Tim and Karrie League’s dream of modern grindhouse lives on: in their indie-tastic multiplexes; in their loving, ongoing renovation of the old Ritz;…
Best Brunch Crowd
The delicious and abundant brunch menu at this converted 19th century saloon attracts a diverse and colorful crowd composed of power-players, tourists, and all sorts of Austinites who crave Moonshine’s uptown, down-home style of comfort vittles. Brunch seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. The all-you-care-to-eat buffet is $13.95, and for that morning belt of…
Best Birthday Cakes
For more than 15 years, Lucy’s has taken “Best of Austin” awards for their legendary cakes. Three generations of the Majors-Gothard family have crafted this business into a beloved Austin icon, due in no small part to their extraordinary service … not to mention the sinfully delicious confections they produce. From the cake for Willie…
Best AM Radio Station
This award-winning local news and talk-radio station began in 1939, and on Aug. 1, 1966, one of Austin’s darkest days, gained national recognition for their coverage of the UT Tower shootings. They continue to impress listeners with their passionate news coverage, community-based approach, and talented lineup, including regular BOA-winner Jeff Ward and broadcasting legend Cactus…
Best Radio Talk/News Host
Jeff Ward knows winning. Hell, he holds the NCAA record for most game-winning field goals (10 with the Longhorns, if you must be so inquisitive). And winning this award five years running makes for pretty good bragging rights. KLBJ’s kinda sitting on a gold mine with Ward manning the afternoon mic for more than a…
Best Outdoor Event
Bob Dylan, Björk, Lucinda Williams, Arcade Fire, the Killers, and so many more stars have all moved on to their next gigs, but Austin is still reverberating from the phenomenon that is ACL. With 65,000 attendees, your votes prove once again that dust storms, drizzle, and dark of night cannot loosen the firm hold that…
Best Elected Official
Why does Austin love the most liberal Texan in the U.S. House? We’ll let his words answer that. “We were reassured that progress was being made in Iraq 500 deaths ago, 1,000 deaths ago, 2,000 deaths ago, 3,000 deaths ago. Like the boy who cried wolf, this president cries ‘progress.’ What progress? With all this…
Best Barber Shop
Also winning Best Haircut for Kids, Birds has made a big splash on the Austin style scene. With national coverage in publications like Newsweek and Elle, Birds proves itself to be so much more than just a salon. Live music, Wi-Fi, visual art, and a disco ball (interiors by local star designer Joel Mozersky) make…
Best Recycler
Nothing’s more communal than sorting trash with strangers. With forklifts backing in and out and people parked at odd angles as they haul bottles, cans, and cardboard (corrugated!) to their rightful bins and Dumpsters, Ecology Action is a beehive of civic action. Savior to those of us without curbside recycling – and anyone else with…
Best Gas Prices
Apparently everything is better in bulk. Costco, your go-to shop not only for a lifetime supply of ketchup, also your place to shop for gas. These big-bargain gurus have managed to keep prices low on filling your gas tank as well as your pantry.
Biggest Movement
South by Southwest Film 07 saw Aaron Katz (Quiet City), Ry Russo-Young (Orphans), and Joe Swanberg (Hannah Takes the Stairs) build upon the achievements of friends and collaborators Susan Buice and Arin Crumley (Four-Eyed Monsters), Andrew Bujalski (Mutual Appreciation), and the Duplass Brothers (The Puffy Chair). The festival this year, showcasing such stammering delights, was…
Best Relocated Snowcones
The phenomenal snow-cone stand has become nomadic this year. Forced to move from their spot on the corner of Lamar and Barton Springs Road due to the construction of yet another mixed-use condominium project, Sno-Beach has relocated to a couple of different spots in the area, now residing (at the time of this writing) in…
Best Place to Get Hooked – or Needled
Lordy day, who would have thought that once-frumpy cousins of the design world like knitting, crocheting, and felting would ever show up on the radar of the hipster set? Well, the old girls have found a new identity in a bright, airy, fresh, and funky setting on South Congress called Craft-o-Rama. A variety of classes…
Best Pulitzer Prize Winner
When it was published in August of 2006, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 became an instant classic of airtight but accessible investigative reporting – a rare moment of perspective in the aftermath of the 2001 World Trade Center attack – and it was by a guy living the dream: writing for…
Best Used Records/CDs
It’s reassuring to know that the byte of streaming and MP3s has not completely wiped out the tangible economics of CDs, DVDs, and LPs. Cheapo Discs’ community of music enthusiasts, case in point, believes wholeheartedly that one man’s attic trash is another man’s rare collectible. With bins and bins of music jewels to be discovered…
Best Place for a Pre- or Post-Flight Getaway
Before Austin’s obsessive infill era, before infill meant fill in every last damn nook and cranny to turn a buck, one of her proudest moments was to finally move the city’s airport from the old Mueller site with not only the intention of redeveloping that into something sweet and residential but to move the air…
Best Way to Outrace the Herd
Wonder if you have what it takes to be a runner? The kind who runs, rain, shine, or ridiculous heat, around that gorgeous lake of ours? Gilbert Tuhabonye, Burundi native and former NCAA all-American champion runner, knows exactly how to move you – from deep within your soul and from deep within your soles. With…
Best Political Theatre
With all the amendments and addenda and amendments to the addenda, life in the Legislature can get dull. So when the El Paso Republican state rep decided he was sick of Speaker Tom Craddick ignoring calls for him to quit, he played political pied piper. The midnight mass exodus he lead brought the House to…
Best Instant Gratification Massage
Everyone feels better after a good rubdown, but not everyone can afford a secluded, art-deco-inspired spa. And finding a “cheap massage” leaves you vulnerable to unlicensed and unhealthy massaging or the fear of ending up in one of those joints where the Austin Police Department decides to kick down the door. Here to alleviate these…
Best New Keeper of the Neighborhood Flame
Long known as the heart of church-lady resale-shop finds, the Burnet Road shopping strip is the frontier of a new kind of funky Austin, a bit more discerning, a little less random, but no less authentic. One morning we went out to explore and, after grabbing a smoothie at Pacha, wandered into Home Girls to…
The Hightower Report
Revisiting the Arrest of Protesters; and Speak Out for America
@Chronic
According to new report, conservative ideologues James Leininger and Bob Perry were the two biggest donors during 2006 election
The Final Season
A small-town high school baseball team is put to the test in this emphatically inspirational mess.
Best City Beautification
The aftermath of the dot-com bust may have slightly altered the vast, lush garden the city master-planned almost 10 years ago, but the recently dedicated Town Lake Park, replete with a giant concrete map of Texas and dancing water fountains, finally opened in August. And since the lake itself was recently renamed after Lady Bird…
Best Dance Company
When it comes to having all the right moves, both Tapestry Dance Company and Ballet Austin more than fit the bill. The 50-year-young ballet – now in its brand-new Downtown home, the Butler Dance Education Center and Community School – can satisfy traditionalists with classical work like Don Quixote and The Nutcracker (44 Christmases and…
Best Cocktails/Cocktail Menu
The Brown Bar’s cocktail-centric menu showcases quality local ingredients like Tito’s Handmade Vodka, as well as house-made jalapeño olives and other pickled garnishes. Such attention to detail makes this the place to go for a great happy-hour martini – without breaking the bank. Inventive flavors like pear or green-tea mojitos will perk the interest of…
Best Cheap Meal
It’s easy to keep the wallet as full as the belly with Tamale House’s generous 85-cent breakfast tacos. Airport Boulevard’s beloved, unassuming shrine to the taco gods keeps prices down and service speedy with low overhead and a streamlined operation. Place your order, marvel at how cheap you made out, fill your own salsa cup,…
Best Bookstore
Since 1970, BookPeople has grown from a Grok-y hole-in-the-wall literary hangout to a world-class book superstore – all without franchising. And they know how to grow loyal customers from the start: by taking them seriously. Sure, they have the requisite puppet shows and story times, but BookKids, BookPeople’s youth-centric store within a store, goes deeper…
Best Blogger
What does a master’s degree in journalism and a sense of humor get you? According to this Pink lady, lots of tears when your loan bills arrive; according to Austin, the title of Best Blogger. In the Pink Texas covers presidential politics, local government, social life, and whatever the highly educated staff desires. Eileen Smith,…
Best Satellite Radio
Think of Howard Stern, and the mind races to double-D-cups on women with no observable self-respect, censor bars, and his low-purr porn voice he uses to make the listener forget he’s, well, Howard Stern. But he’s also not just one but two entire Sirius radio channels – all Howard, all the time. For all the…
Best Place for a Picnic
Our local oasis flaunts a beauty that redefines Texas for many visitors. Pair this amazing setting with a blanket, swimsuit, and picnic basket, and have a first class meal with Mother Nature. There are six picnic areas spread out around the park with barbecue pits and tables, and activities to enjoy after your meal like…
Best Environmentalist
As owner of the Natural Gardener nursery, host of KLRU’s “Backyard Basics,” and longtime personality behind KLBJ’s Gardening Naturally, John Dromgoole is not just your go-to guy for all things organic; he’s a pioneering veteran of Austin’s green scene and an integral part of the ever-growing efforts to keep Central Texas (more than just) livable.…
Best Bicycle Repair
We all have that friend who always wants to talk about bikes. Chances are, they work at Bicycle Sport Shop, because the kids who work here not only tune up bike after bike with bike-Yoda intelligence and awareness; they love biking. Biking is their way of life. The only way of life. Good thing they…
Best Shoe Repair
Part of the world’s largest shoe-repair company, Austin Shoe Hospital replaces soles and restores the leather’s original shine; makes heel tips nonslip and durable; reconditions boots; repairs luggage, handbags, and briefcases; and even has a mail-in service. With nine Austin-area locations there’s plenty of that famous Texan hospitality to go around.
Best Green Business
And you thought green living meant turning off the air conditioner and crunching an odd organic carrot. How about organic cotton socks? Reusable gift-wrap sacks? Praying mantis eggs for gardeners who really hate insecticides? And, of course, biodiesel, from this greening influence on Austin shopping habits.
Bravest Film Festival, Even in Death
We’re missing the point if we pay too much attention to the politics surrounding the demise of Cinematexas. We’re wasting time if we sit around wondering who’s to blame and what might be gained by sifting through the remains. All that matters now is what they were really about: wannabes shutting up, getting to work,…
Best Smoothie Named After a Dead Icon
Were the ghost of pelvic-thrusting rock & roll icon Elvis Presley to appear before us now and croon, “Just come and drink from my fountain of love,” we wouldn’t blush, because we know exactly to what he was referring: a smoothie named in his honor, available at Central Market. The King, so named because it…
Best Place to Play in a Fountain
Just a short drive north of Austin is a hidden, 90-acre treasure of a park – a free treasure of a park. In addition to bike trails, a sand volleyball court, picnicking areas, and a playground, there’s a water playscape open 10am to 8pm, April through September. So, after heating up with a bike ride…
Best Reason for the ‘Statesman’
Although we cheerfully pound on the daily when deserving, few of us face the morning without consulting the Sargent-at-Pen: Ben Sargent’s irreplaceable editorial cartoon. Sargent’s rapier wit and his liquid, elegant line take on eclectic targets: Chinese toys, City Hall, of course Congress and the Lege. Fearless? Even the UT football program gets gored occasionally,…
Best Used-Car Dealership
With discount outlets popping up as retail outposts everywhere, it’s fitting that there’re used-car “supermarkets” among the bargains. The country’s largest used-car retailer gives you a written offer for your car whether you buy from them or not. If you do, you’ll choose from an inventory subjected to a 125-point inspection, backed by a five-day,…
Best Ruins
Twelve seconds after 7:30am on Feb. 25, car alarms, prompted by the nearby quake, sang in unison and signaled the end of the Intel shell. Twelve seconds was all it took – well, that and about 700 pounds of dynamite – to tear apart this naked structure, this long-neglected but never-forgotten relic of Austin’s tech…
Best Wheeling It Back Home
The Women’s Flat Track Derby Association national championships, held here in September, didn’t just roll in to town. It came back to the city and to the women of the Texas Rollergirls that birthed the modern Roller Derby revolution. The eight regional teams were the best of the best from the 43 affiliated local leagues…
Best Rain-or-Shine Anti-War Campaigners
All around the world women wear black and gather in public places to hold vigils against violence and war. In Austin they stand politely and genteelly in front of the Texas state Capitol at noon every Wednesday for an hour, waving affably but determinedly to supporters and opponents alike, handing out fliers, talking through the…
Best Realtor for People Who Are Afraid of Realtors
Even before she sold our farmhouse in the suburban hinterlands, guided us through a difficult first investment, and humored our subsequent airs of expertise, we knew Lisa Muñoz was the real estate pro for us. It’s not just the absence of big hair and balloon bouquets: Muñoz knows her market and gets the creative-class aesthetic;…
Best New Second Street Neighbor
She just moved in this summer, but this chic and stylish new girl on the Second Street block is perfectly matched with Estilo, Sana, and Shiki, due to all of the charm of her original Joel Mozersky-designed store. This new location, however, is a perfect example of going to where the customer is. With lines…
Does It Really Pay to Work in Austin?
Workers earn less in Austin than other major cities
King of California
Michael Douglas plays a wild-eyed dreamer who sways his daughter and friend into digging clandestinely for treasure underneath a California superstore.
Best Historic Site
If size does matter, the Texas Capitol wins. It’s taller than the U.S. Capitol by 7 feet (thanks to the statue of the Goddess of Liberty on the dome) and is a superior example of 19th century public architecture. History permeates the present. Kids can scream through nighttime sprinklers or get their first kisses on…
Best Dance Lessons
Whether you have a natural gift for the swing or never graduated past the Humpty Hump, there’s something for you to learn at Go Dance. They embrace the philosophy that we all can and should dance. With classes such as salsa, Western, ballroom, and then some, they teach more than 300 students monthly. With practice…
Best Dance Club
Sunday nights have meant Eighties dancing for way too long, and Elysium is just a fixture of Austin nightlife, always a sweaty, smoky good time in one of the darkest, gothiest bars in town. It’s a dance club. No gimmicks, no frills. Just drinks served by tough-looking cookies, great music, and lots of black-clad kids.
Best Coffee/Tea Selection
From the original on Lamar, the local coffee minichain has become as much a part of Austin as guitars and bats – there’s even a Java at City Hall! Now, with their soon-to-open outlet at the airport, Austin Java’s rich, dark brews and oh-so-scrumptious all-day menu could be the first stop for visitors flying in…
Best Clothing
Bright Beginnings is a smorgasbord of baby and youth couture. Started in 1984, this Austin-based company has everything to pamper your pint-sized princess/prince from cotton T’s to designer blazers. The owners and employees are experts at making your child the envy of the rest of the crib.
Best Columnist
Hide your tofu! This year, Austin’s self-appointed roast master general has spoofed on vegans, attorney generals, vegetarians, the lack of toilets at football stadiums, and meat-haters. Coming on like a hayseed Hemingway, the cuddly columnist with the cruel tongue brings barroom mocking to the page three times a week.
Best Sportscaster
How is it a Hoosier could know soooo much about Lone Star State sports? He’s as well-versed in Colt McCoy’s third-down stats as he is with the Del Valle junior varsity football squad. Well, KXAN (you know ‘em as NBC Channel 36) pays him for his time, and 12 years into the game, Roger Wallace…
Best Place to Camp
Sometimes camping means one night in the wilderness, sleeping in a car with a trunk full of Lone Star. Sometimes, it’s a week of truly roughing it, making all your own food, living on a bed pad with leaves for toilet paper. At Pace Bend, you can do either. Located just 30 miles from Austin,…
Best Grassroots Group
The first year was all about the curiosity and initial attraction: Diane “Kitty” Murray sent out a call on the Craigslist Women Seek Women personals board to gather women together for the common goal of exploring local cuisine and one another. Women did respond – at first a bit awkward and shy but steadily warming…
Best Car Wash
With an emphasis on detail, variety, and customer service, the Genie is the best – and has been for the last 11 years – at granting your car-wash wishes. Three locations throughout Austin offer affordable and quick cleaning magic with a money-back guarantee. Car aficionados follow the neon Genie in the sky; it is still…
Best Spa
The bonding opportunities of Lake Austin Spa’s mother/daughter package and girlfriend getaways are a globe-trotter’s destination on your doorstep – so much so, the American Cancer Society holds its Gathering of Wise Women there. In addition to international kudos from the likes of Condé Nast, Travel & Leisure, and Destinations magazines, the readers of this…
Best Liquor Store
Baileys in the morning, Rose Regale as an afternoon treat, and unfiltered sake bombing all night long; the lady had a very demanding palate. When we first set out to sate her lady’s desires, our trek took us to three different liquor outlets. No go. Then we decided to give in and check out the…
Film Festival With Most Years of Service
We love nothing more than a festival in uniform and out of step, but we’ll also accept in step and out of uniform. The venerable yet irreverent aGLIFF turned 20 this year – making it the senior officer in the daunting Austin festival campaign – and celebrated with its biggest and most inclusive event yet:…
Best Spirit-ual Awakening
Handmade here in Austin, Paula’s Texas Orange Premium Liqueur and Paula’s Texas Lemon Premium Liqueur are delightful additions to every well-stocked bar in Texas. PTO is an essential ingredient in margaritas of the local variety, and PTL is as fine a sipping liqueur as there is. Texacello owner Angerstein is reworking a trail originally blazed…
Best Surfeit of Sweets
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, step right this way, and behold the most mouthwatering accumulation of sugary delights ever assembled under one roof. From the far corners of the globe, owner Brandon Hodge and his crack crew of confectionologists have gathered sweetmeats and neat treats to tickle your taste buds. You’ll gasp at…
Best Underwater Portraits
Blending underwater and fashion photography, Kirlin creates portraits that are so romantically over-the-top, they’re almost like fairy-tale illustrations. The portraits of women and children have a Botticelli-like grace that Kirlin captures with an expert eye. Her website is loaded with private commissions that she’s done – a virtual portfolio of magical and magnificent compositions that…
Best at Long Last Appearance
It took 30 years, feasibility studies, task forces, two bond elections, no lack of consternation, and a lot of determination, but the Mexican American Cultural Center is now a reality. While two more phases remain to bring the center to completion, there is no lack of activity at the great white origami building on the…
Best Urban Elder
For decades now, architect Sinclair Black has been our critic, gadfly, and conscience, demanding better urban design from the city of Austin and developers. In his younger years, Black was seen as irritatingly abrasive, if visionary. Now that he’s acquired the patina of age, Black, 67, is credited with wisdom and even greatness. As well…
Best-Kept Secret Run Challenge
Ever get sick of the running trails, the high school tracks, the campus sidewalks? We certainly do. And don’t think for a New York minute you have to take the beaten path. What say you, Mr. Frost? “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by.” Thanks, Bob.…
Best Rubber-Elvis-Wig-Wearing Messenger to the People
Someone holding a cardboard sign by the side of the road normally means either a political campaign or a plea for help. But around the junction of 38th and Guadalupe, where Dave often stands clad in his trademark tie-dyed shirt and rubber Elvis wig, it means smile. They can be charming, cheerful, even challenging (“Austin,…
Best Relocated Duck-Billed Hairdresser
Don’t worry. Kelly’s not duck-billed, but his incredibly cozy, one-sink, two-chair salon, which recently moved to the Drag from East Fifth, is our favorite spot to have a glass of wine and a head massage while watching magic performed atop our very own heads. Kelly’s turning wheels are evident through his mischievous eyes, and when…
Best Options When There’s More to Love
Pricey but a lifesaver, Wardrobe provides options for those of us on the larger side or who’ve just been around for a while. While they carry a wide array of all sizes (even the occasional petite), their selection of terrific separates not specifically targeted to the twentysomething set is a must-see for the larger gal…
Letters @ 3AM
An economy of speculation is an economy of debt
Happenings
Oct. 11-17
Laaga Chunari Mein Daag
New Bollywood film.
Best Hotel
Raise your hand if you’ve ever had a two-shades-of-red smile to show for your tasty cheese platter while relaxing in the courtyard where feng shui handbooks come to die. Raise it again if you’ve enjoyed creamy sheets and have been woken up by the light instead of the alarm just to get up early and…
Best Emergent Local Filmmaker
When most Texans get into a hairy situation south of the border, they hightail it home and never talk about it again. But triple-threat writer/producer/director Stovall turned his bad trip into his debut feature, Mexican Sunrise. It has picked up a raft of festival screenings, a batch of awards, and the attention of critics, film-buffs,…
Best Dive Bar
We love places where locals can relax, sip beer, hear the band, play a game, shoot the breeze, and yell, “Bingo!” when a chicken shits. Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon is the perfect place for all of that and then some, known for years of good country music and fun, fun games. That’s right: We like…
Best Expensive Restaurant
Some lovers want diamonds; some want pearls – but all want Uchi. Fit to be saved for the most special of occasions, the famous omakase, a multicourse house specialty, is perfection. Plate after plate of gorgeous fresh fish, flown in from Japan daily, are chopped with ultimate precision and exquisitely combined with seasonal ingredients for…
Best Haircut
Unleash the future rock star in your little bundle of joy with the coolest kids cuts from $15 to $25. And they trim more than kids: Mayor Will Wynn was the shop’s inaugural customer. Birds is not just a barbershop but a venue for assorted hipster gatherings. With foosball, DJs, and plenty of visuals, everyone’s…
Best Journalist
You wouldn’t know it by sight, but behind the tiny frame and homegrown smile lies one hell of a fierce and scare-proof journalist. Never shying away from controversy, Jordan Smith has championed for transparency in women’s issues (the notorious Bible-in-crotch cover story, anyone?), stayed dead on course with the Warren Jeffs polygamy case, and, of…
Best Sportswriter
Great columnists talk how they write, and that’s Bohls in person. Measured, thoughtful, and ridiculously well-informed on all matters regarding UT sports. The often critical chronicler of the Burnt Orange empire remains the truest friend to the team and the fans by never becoming a cheerleader and always keeping the score.
Best Place to Make Out
The place formerly known as Antoinette’s Leap is not only the highest point in the city, but surely it’s the most romantic. The views and vistas, day or night, dazzle the eye, and the legend of the beauty who leaped to her death after her lover was killed by Indians adds a Hollywood touch that’s…
Best Job
Education is a rewarding challenge and one of the most important occupations in the world. This city is full of bright and creative kids with fresh minds to shape. Whether you are teaching multiplication with math beads in a Montessori classroom, taking a group of home-schoolers to the Wildlife Refuge to bird-watch, or preparing Austin…
Best Computer Repair
All praise the gods of Geekdom. Give unto them your blue screens of death and jammed drives, and have mercy on our pocketbooks. For theirs are the bargain-price reconditioned and surplus parts, the new custom-built machines, and the worldwide shipping. Let the Dell specialists upgrade the powerless and streamline the convoluted until we’re all singing…
Best Tailor
It just feels like it’s family-run. With four different locations, success has come from a simple formula: Provide custom alterations and tailoring at affordable prices, always remain courteous and customer-oriented, and have your work speak for itself. Just try it on. If it isn’t perfect when they hand it back to you, they’ll keep working…
Best Local Bookstore
What do Bill Clinton, Elizabeth Edwards, John Kerry, and Mr. Kotter have in common? When they come to town to do a signing, there’s only one place to go. The biggest independent bookstore in Texas has been bringing in the big names and great books for 37 years. Plus, we love that old barber’s chair…
Highest Achievement in Tater-Tot Artistry and Technique
Since consuming deep-fried foods is now considered tantamount to driving without buckling up, you need to be highly selective about what you choose. Why settle for inferior goodies? We can think of no better way to indulge in a guilty pleasure than the tater tots at Waterloo Ice House. Those familiar little nuggets arrive with…
Best Tiendita
To call El Dorado simply a “little store” doesn’t begin to cover it. The cozy market on Airport is also a taqueria, serving up authentic pastor, barbacoa, and huitlacoche on a grill in sight, plus a fruteria and carneceria, which sells to the public as well as supplies wholesale to local restaurants like Moe’s and…
Best Tot Dancing
Trip the light fantastic, and dance the fandango with your precious bundles of joy in the garden at Güero’s, under the live oaks at sunset. The charm of this oasis amid the bustling SoCo scene is irresistible. And better yet, it’s free. Wednesday through Saturday, 6:30-9:30pm; Sunday, 3-6pm (weather permitting).
Best Use of the Word ‘Douchebaggotry’
Where the haters at? Back from hiatus with ironic-mustached vengeance, 3-year-old Misprint Magazine’s latest volume (The Deca-dence Issue) offers more of the sarcasm and hipsterazzi-takedowns we love and secretly want to be a part of. Never afraid to take shots at Austin’s beloved bands and clubs (well, under pseudonyms), the staff brought us the term…
Best Building Impersonating Florence Nightingale
Where runways once ran, now run children, thanks to the Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas. And while the original control tower at Mueller Airport may be gone, there is a new one topped with what looks like a nurse’s cap of old. The $200 million facility, assisted by a $25 million matching grant…
Most Interesting Way to Stem Cricket Invasion
The University of Texas cock-blocked horny crickets this summer when, for two weekends in July and August, it shut off the lights of the UT tower. Apparently, because of its brightness, it’s like a phallic beacon for bugs wanting to get nasty. Why now, you ask? Well, this summer’s wet weather drew them here, and…
Dreamiest Field
It’s true that the Chronicle currently boasts a 6-2 record at Krieg against the likes of BookPeople, Waterloo Records, KOOP Radio, and South by Southwest, but we’d love the place even if we weren’t the best softball team in town. There’s pickup soccer and flag football, a snow-cone stand, a tower where the Fire Department…
Best Unsung Hero
For his unexpected victory on behalf of death row inmate Kenneth Foster – winning an unprecedented commutation from Gov. Perry for a man who had not committed murder – attorney Hampton has received long-earned and well-deserved praise. Hampton has labored in the uphill pro bono death penalty appeal ranks for years while maintaining a busy…
Best Rescue of a Grooming Tradition
Most folks acquiring an old barber shop nowadays would strip out the striped pole and go all salon on the joint. But when Continental Club owner Steve Wertheimer and Kevin Lemoine bought George’s Barber Shop from longtime owner George Jaeger this year, they embraced the past, turning the clock back to the early Sixties with…
Best Outdoor Festival Retailer
SoLa, the shop, is practically a pioneer in South Lamar’s emerging SoLa shopping district. It has a dedicated following that seeks them out both at their retail location and at festivals such as Austin City Limits and Old Pecan Street. And they reward these loyal clients with quirky, fun, and hard-to-find selections, including By Boe…
Arts Review
Austin Playhouse revival reminds us that the war between creationists and Darwinists still isn’t finished
Off the Tracks: How fast was it
Cap Metro still investigating train derailment
Lust, Caution
The NC-17-rated passion in Ang Lee’s movie is at distinct odds with the chilly film that surrounds its lovers.
Best Indoor Public Space
Its outdoor plaza has been the setting for live music, swanky parties, and even a few barking Klansmen. But within City Hall’s limestone walls and among the shimmer of her 66,000 square feet of copper, you’ll find a great indoor space, including the People’s Gallery, which showcases visual art. There you’ll find virtually no Klansmen.…
Best Film Series
It’s a fairly recent re-pairing, the Austin Film Society and the Dobie Theatre, as this was the spot of the start of the society more than 20 years ago. This past year AFS@Dobie featured works from notable directors Lars von Trier, Ken Loach, and Johnny To, as well as timely documentaries like James D. Scurlock’s…
Best Drag Queen/Drag King
Behind the scrim, the shadowy figure preens: regal, dramatic, queenly. The profile, especially the hairdo, is distinct. When she emerges, there is no question: Saffire Trinity is Joan Crawford. It takes a lot of woman to be able to pull off an icon like Joan … or Dolly or Tina. Well, once the gown is…
Best Farmers’ Market
As one of the Top 5 farmers’ markets in the nation (according to Eat Well magazine), Sunset Valley starts your Saturday off right with an amazing selection of homegrown goodness: From candles to coffee to soap to organic pesticide, it’s all there and all local. And of course, there’s the produce. Check out this season’s…
Best Nature Day Trip
Compact enough to see without melting from exhaustion, the Austin Zoo shelters all the animals kiddies want to see. Stare down the Galapagos tortoise that keeps his eye on you, watch the Bengal tiger play with his ball, or try to decipher the mysterious message of the Moluccan cockatoo. Goats roam the petting zoo, just…
Best Local Author/Poet
Pencils down! Veteran wordsmith and Sinus Show survivor Owen Egerton’s How Best to Avoid Dying is a collection of short stories that are funny, surprising, and just a little irreverent. You’ll appreciate the humor and the depth. Meanwhile, first-time author, flat-track fury, and Hotrod Honey Melissa “Melicious” Joulwan dishes on Roller Derby, showing us the…
Best TV Anchor
Pretty, yes, but you won’t find this babe asleep at the wheel behind KXAN’s evening news desk or blithely parroting someone else’s words from the teleprompter. There are years of beat reporting, undercover investigations, and even a trip into a Mexican federal prison in pursuit of a story behind that desk. From humble beginnings in…
Best Place to Skate
Playland Skate has more than 20 years of wheeling away the worries of the world under its belt. Dually home to private parties and arcade games for the little wheelers while amped with foggy effects and lighting to satiate the funkiest of the big wheels, this mecca-in-the-round is home of the Texas Rollergirls and the…
Best Local Issue
They’re coming in droves to plunk down $500,000 for their 1,000-square-foot piece of the Downtown skyline, aren’t they? The Spring, the Monarch, 360, the Austonian, the 5 Fifty Five, the Red River Flats, the Legacy @ Town Lake, La Vista on Lavaca, the Altavida, the Shore, Brazos Place … the list goes on. Is it…
Best Contractor/Home Service
Affordable, stylish, and able to handle tasks large and small, Room Fu is perfect for the DIYer looking for direction or the home owner desperate for a design pro to (re)create their environment. Design guru Robin Callan demystifies the process, dispelling the myth of “if you have to ask, you can’t afford” by listing her…
Best Tattoo Artist
Reputations precede. Such is the case at Resurrection Tattoo, where former Southside Tattoo artist Karen’s loaded schedule speaks volumes. Even after all these years behind the needle (more than 16 years), her art form advances with every client, putting a personal touch into her work. It isn’t about ego for her, nor about who’s wearing…
Best Local Hardware Store
The majority of times this ballot has been presented, the majority of voters have said that Breed was the best. They must be doing something right, huh? The big-box stores don’t even come close to this local favorite. Go ahead. Call the big boys to see if they carry Bio Zapp or have diatomaceous earth…
Most Unchained Chain Theatre
As the local arthouse venue of the national Regal Cinemas chain, the Arbor @ Great Hills can always be counted on to showcase an outstanding selection of films. The theatre goes the extra distance by hosting such series as the DocuWeek Tour and Reel Talks, as well as providing festival screens for the Austin Gay…
Best Way to Find a Decent Taco
We suspect these guys love tacos more than they love sex. Taco-passionate bloggers fulfill their destiny as pioneers in the quest for the perfect Mexican meal. The search starts in Austin and often ventures far beyond home. From Torchy’s Tacos to Zuzu Handmade Mexican Food, from Brownsville to Seattle, these Austin gustatory guides take it…
Best Walk on the Wild Side
Introducing kids and adults to the outdoors doesn’t have to be difficult or boring. With the help of the naturalists at the Wildflower Center, the whole family can join guided hikes exploring the 16 gardens, the Little House Courtyard (created especially for children ages 2-6), the bloomin’ South Meadow nature preserve around the visitors’ center,…
Best Way to Not Hear ‘Bad Boys’
Just when we’d managed to scrub the bad taste of The Real World: Austin out of our mouths, the producers of Fox’s unrealistic reality show Cops began thinking of taking their lens caps off in Austin. The city thought about it and said no. Not because it would have shone a light on policing in…
Best Converted Gas Station for Hanging Out With Architects
Some of our favorite places in Austin used to be gas stations: Threadgill’s on Lamar and Nuevo Leon on 15th and San Jacinto, to name a couple. So it’s only appropriate that our local chapter of the American Institute of Architects has found a new home in a stylishly renovated gas station on 12th Street…
Best Art One-Stop Shop South of the River
Since its opening in 2000, Gallery Soco has risen to prominence in Austin’s art scene by offering contemporary fine art, museum-quality custom framing, art searches, artist representation, and art consultations on the chic SoCo strip. With a strong background from a family that owned art galleries, Gallery Soco owner Jason Siegel selects original art as…
Best at Restoring Some Faith in Law Enforcement
The Texas Ranger is a mythic figure. They were supposed to be the good guys who rode into the corners of the state and fought for good. When Ranger Brian Burzynski started his investigation into alleged abuse by staff of inmates at the West Texas State School, he lived up to that inheritance. He listened…
Best Visiting Activist
When Rob Kampia, the 38-year-old founder of the fast-rising advocacy group the Marijuana Policy Project, decided he had to get the hell outta Washington, D.C., for a while, where did he turn? Austin. That’s right, MPP Executive Director Kampia has made Austin his home base for most of the year. Kampia has been at the…
Best Wall-to-Wallers
Every time we walk into Carpet Stop, we notice a buzz of activity, with just about every salesperson engaged in a thorough consultation with a customer, asking all the requisite questions: Traffic? Kids? Pets? They carry all the brands you’d expect – Stainmaster, Alladin, Mohawk, etc. – and have more than 250,000 square feet in…
Best Purveyor of Feel-Good Liquids
For years, Junior’s has offered cut-rate kegs and a fine selection of sudsy beverages, including myriad imported beers, loads of domestic microbrews, and venerable ales from across the nation. But this year, Junior’s began selling another brewed liquid by the gallon, but this one’s not for drinking. Forging a partnership with local start-up Austin Biofuels,…
Arts Review
With standout work by Katherine Catmull, Beckett’s ‘happy’ play gets a revival to be grateful for
Hurricane Hindsight
Learning from our hurricanes’ past
Best Lobby/Waiting Room
If you wanted to convey the grandeur of the Driskill lobby, you could use words like “opulent,” “posh,” or “lavish.” Or you could describe the imposing three-story columns, the sparkling marble floors, or the kind of stained-glass ceiling fixture that stuntmen were born to dive through. You’d never know that, in 1908, two Texas lawyers…
Best Museum
The wait for a world-class art gallery was a long one, but in its second year open, it’s hard to believe we lasted without it. The coolly elegant Blanton, with its labyrinth of galleries looping around the massive central atrium, has an Old World grandeur. The 17,000-piece collection, regularly supported by touring exhibitions, proves Austin…
Best Gay/Lesbian Hangout
Hooch, hot dogs, and Hedda Layne’s divine electro-beats. Rain knows what Austin’s gay and lesbian party people want, and they know their clientele can be as proudly nerdy and sporty as anyone else. Yeah, they’ll fire up the Xbox 360 for some competitive Dance Dance Revolution, but Mondays can get a bit Rob Halford with…
Best Local Food Company
Local organic food delivered to your door and reasonably priced? Too good to be true? Nah. This is Austin, and the eco-friendly sustainable food fairies at Greenling are for real. They offer a great deal on all your produce needs, which you can pick yourself or let the experts choose with one of six different…
Best Party Place
Best Party Place, Best Arcade, and Best Teen Hangout make Main Event a popular destination for many people and many reasons. A safe, well-maintained, and well-staffed environment offering bowling; billiards; laser tag; giant arcades with more than 100 video, virtual, interactive, and redemption games (including a secured “mature” section for those of appropriate age); glow…
Best Local Non-‘Chronicle’ Publication
In one corner: the dry-witted heavyweight known across the nation that set up a satellite shop in the ATX. In the other corner, the plucky Southwest Austin weekly that gives a real voice to the Oak Hill area. But between satire that makes everyone laugh and journalism that serves a single community, they’re both making…
Best TV Reporter
This is Quita’s sixth win and Amy’s first appearance – in fact it’s News 8’s first appearance in this category ever. As Weekend Daybreak anchor, as well as reporter, Quita, who has been with KVUE since 1998, also does the popular Does It Work Wednesdays segment. A relative newcomer, Amy joined News 8 in 2003…
Best Pool Tables
Cowboys and gals reminiscent of old dime novels grace the walls while the system beats alt-rock at this Sixth Street staple. Three rooms of pool tables means there’s plenty of game going, and the place is so spacious that it doesn’t really feel crowded even when weekend revelers stream in. But the rockin’ social scene…
Best Local Political Blog
This team of witty women (and men) makes political diatribe go down smoothly with a side of snark and a shot of tequila. Meanwhile, they’ve been working hard to get bloggers treated seriously as hardworking and accredited journalists. Whether it’s shining a spotlight on policy or doling a manicured-finger wag to the already elected, this…
Best Dry Cleaner
We heard that during a sudden downpour this summer, a Reid’s employee suggested a customer drive her car around to the back door, where he would be waiting to hand her things to her. Thoughtful, yes? Granted, this is not standard with their fine service, but this attention to detail and kindness is what we’ve…
Best Veterinarian
Why would you trust your beloved but banged-up four-legged buddy to someone if you weren’t sure they loved animals? With vet Mark Cotnam and his staff, every day is bring-your-pet-to-work day. Their love of animals as well as their quality of personal service and medical experience make these dog-and-cat experts the clinic of choice for…
Best Music Gear
Locals, we love you, but Guitar Center has done it again. In this chain of musical instruments, every link in the band – drummer, guitarist, and bass player – may explore separate rooms to hook up with his or her dream rig. Whether you’re looking for something to pluck, plink, or smash, Guitar Center’s in-house…
Most Upstanding Local Video-Game Incubator
The video-game industry couldn’t possibly be run by a bunch of humorless suits worried about stock prices, could it? The glut of recent sequels might give you a clue. Gamecock thinks there’s a better way. Founded by Mike Wilson, who’s worked on games since Doom, and funded by anonymous jet-setting billionaires, the company was announced…
Best Way to Go Organic on the Fly
In their infancy, DaVine Foods, at the entrance of the Enchanted Forest, is already Austin-renowned for their sprouted-seed veggie burger and knock-you-out waffles – ooh, and the hummus wrap served with tahini sauce and beet salsa: killer! But they are famous for defying the misconception that eating organic means eating expensive. In addition to their…
Tastiest Crickets
According to a recent informal poll of some Austin frogs and skinks, the crickets at Herpeton Exotic Pets are tastier, crunchier, and more nutritious than other crickets. And while it may be difficult to stomach that, we can say for sure that Herpeton does offer crickets in three delicious sizes: small, medium, and large. Seriously,…
Best ‘Twofer’ in the Great Outdoors
True, it’s not a 10-mile hike in a ravishing wilderness, but if you have an interest in native flora and enjoy exercise out-of-doors, a trip to La Crosse Avenue is definitely worth your time. Explore the beautiful trails and gardens of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildlife Center; enjoy refreshments in the center’s cafe or picnic…
Best Cubist Neighborhood
Love them or hate them, ultramodern cubist homes have been bursting forth all over town, especially in South Austin and along Woodrow Avenue. Austin, frequently highlighted in Dwell and other architecture magazines, is a leader in producing these modern masterpieces. However, not all of us are fans of these angular abodes, and haters have pleaded,…
Best Fire-Spinning
With your eyes locked and mouth open, you may be spoiled by what you see. And feel. Witnessing these mystical dancers may make the usual campfire seem like a wet pack of matches. Worry not; it happens to every first-time spectator. Fire-spinning. Fire-dancing. Yes, we’re talking fireballs at the ends of chains, rods, and whatever…
Best Brother and Sister Team Bringing National Attention to Austin
Chef/restaurateur Lou Lambert’s culinary style has made a name for him across Texas and is gaining national press for his efforts. Sister Liz Lambert, attorney-turned-hotelier, is the proprietor of Hotel San José, the SoCo bastion of chic, and has begun a small empire, often working with brother Lou. Their separate visions of true Texas style…
Feistiest Neighborhood Rebellion
We thought they were crazy. Get enough protesters out on a Saturday morning to link arms all the way around Northcross? We had visions of 20 people showing up and barely blocking the front door. Boy, were we wrong – enough neighbors of the now ex-mall showed up on Feb. 10 that they not only…
Best Way to Keep on Rollin’
Welcome to East Austin’s institution of affordable expediency. Get your tires balanced, rotated, or patched – or break down and buy a quality used one to replace the one you’ve patched to tire heaven. Keeping the business in the familia, Leal’s banks its Austin cred with more than 20 years of keeping us rolling. Trustworthy,…
Best Rubber for the Sole
Ever wonder where the ever-elusive specialty shoes can be found? Downtown Austin, baby. Selling specialty kicks like Nike Quickstrike, (ultra-hard-to-find) New Balance, Vans, Adidas, & Stussy and nonmall gear by aNYthing, J-Money, Acapulco Gold, Mighty Healthy, In4mation, Wings & Horns, Recon, and Subware, this is not so much a “store” but a vortex where urban…
Luv Doc Recommends: Texas Burlesque Festival
If you really want to look at naked people, they’re all over the place. No more so than on the Internet. If you don’t believe it, try typing the word “bazookas” into Google’s image search. The result is a cross between a carnival freak show and a chiropractor’s wet dream. Nobody in your office probably…
