Dating by Neighborhood

North, south, east and west: Our favorite date spots by Austin neighborhood

While Grease anthems suggest that romance is only for "those summer nights," any Austinite knows that along with seasonal allergies, fall also brings a certain seasonal relief: at last, we can socialize without the worry that sweat stains will outweigh even the sweetest of anecdotes.

Perhaps you’re picking out a place for a fancy first date or maybe you’re married and need a new neighborhood "go-to." Dating, married or single, why not deepen your affection for our great city and get to know your own neighborhood? Let us help you save (a little) gas money as you explore the eateries and entertainment venues in your own backyard.

For our first installment, we cover our favorite neighborhoods north of the river, or as The Daily Show with Jon Stewartdubbed it last week, "the organic bramble and algae puddle farm" we like to call Lady Bird Lake.

Hyde Park/Airport Boulevard
Komé Sushi Kitchen ($40 each, if you start with sake)
Komé owners Také and Kayo Asazu combine authentic Japanese home cooking, a New Orleans influence and a mutual love of Austin to create a masterpiece that is as much a feast for the eyes as it is for taste buds. Salty edamame and pink Snow Maiden sake should kick off your colorful experience, along with the sweet orange caviar (roe) garnish on several of the rolls. Kome offers a better value than many other sushi options in town which means you're guaranteed to leave with a full belly — and a full wallet.

I Luv Video (Free beer and movie rentals from $1-$4)
Every Tuesday after 5 pm, both I Luv Video locations offer free beer while you browse through extensive film collections. The original location on Airport Boulevard has been in business since 1984, making this Austin establishment even older than the Blockbusters of your childhood. New releases rent at $4 for two nights, while stock titles are $2.75 for five nights. Make it a truly retro experience and hunt down all six Star Wars for $1 each in the VHS section or sift through other classics like Independence Day, Armageddon, Braveheart and The Sandlot.

Domain/Arboretum
North Italia ($36-$40 each with wine)
Whether you're planning a lunchtime rendezvous or happy hour meet up, North Italia makes the perfect pre- or post-shopping experience. The salad selection varies based on season, but some of our favorites include the summer golden beet salad and the recent heirloom offering. Pair that with the fig and prosciutto pizza and a glass of wine and you have a perfect (and romantic) meal.

iPic Theater ($20 each for premium seating, $29 for premium plus)
After an indulgent dinner, head over to the iPic theater for a nap — or a movie. The fully reclining, premium plus seats come with pillows, blankets, popcorn and food service. The only thing lacking is an actual butler to drive you home and tuck you in to bed after the show.

Rosedale/Allandale
Apothecary Café & Wine Bar ($25-$30 each)
For a sophisticated Sunday date, ease into your morning with hibiscus vanilla mimosas at Apothecary Café & Wine Bar. The Grapefruit Brulee is a sweet start to the day, and though the best egg poachers must toe the line between too runny and overdone, the "perfect egg" menu description on the Pork Cheek Benedict is no lie. We always ask for some extra goat cheese on the brulee to make it even more wonderful.

Top Drawer
To stick with the vintage theme of Apothecary’s decor, walk off your mimosas and head across the street to Top Drawer for a browse. They offer everything from dishes and clothes to cute knick-knacks, couches and even a portrait room in the back. Keep the fun going with a drive over to North Loop and browse at Room Service Vintage and Rave On.

Mueller/Manor
Eastside Cafe ($30-$40 each with wine)
If you’ve driven down Manor Road recently, you know there are many good restaurants popping up. That was not the case when Eastside Cafe first opened its doors in 1988. With a menu centered around the herbs and vegetables from the on-site garden, the cafe has done well to keep up with the new kids on the block. A charming little house turned restaurant, dining here feels like you never left the comfort of your own kitchen — until you try the baked brie and apple chutney which is too good to be true. The specials change daily thanks to fresh seasonal ingredients, so whether its brunch, lunch or dinner, ask the friendly staff for a recommendation

Blue Starlite Drive-In Theater ($5-$15)
After dinner, head over to the Blue Starlite Drive-In Theater to enjoy these November nights at their finest. This month features a Harry Potter fest from November 6-16, so don’t be a muggle and miss out on the fun. Groupon offers a $10 car slot, and the vintage speakers are free on a first-come, first-serve basis. Don't wanna drive? Bring a chair and blanket and enjoy the show with a $5 walk-in ticket.

French Legation
The Silo on 7th ($30 each)
For craft beers, specialty burgers and tasty cocktails, head straight to The Silo on 7th. Opened in March, the view from the rooftop patio makes a perfect twilight dinner setting. The Silo Fries have ruined all other fries forever and come complete with two fried eggs and generous chunks of bacon over a beautiful mess of hand-cut potatoes. It's the kind of dish that even Ron Swanson would love — just be sure to save some of cayenne ketchup for your burgers. If you’re achin’ for more bacon, the Comal burger won’t steer you wrong, and the Attayac is a total crowd pleaser with ground bison and blue cheese on a Kaiser bun.

East Side Show Room ($25 each if you split an appetizer or dessert)
For a Bohemian adventure, sidle over to the East Side Show Room and walk straight back into the 1920s. Complemented by dimly lit chandeliers and a silent film projector, the works of local visual artists line the walls, and the décor will have you on the look out for F. Scott Fitzgerald himself. Live music ranges from jazz to gypsy ensembles, blues and Spanish guitar. Cocktails like the Airmail, French Retreat and Southern Belle epitomize the bar’s focus of pairing hand-selected spirits with local fresh-squeezed juices. Definitely try the watermelon and Feta appetizer … even if you’re still full from the Silo.

Downtown
Second Bar + Kitchen ($35 each)
Now that we can enjoy the patio seating without melting, people-watching at Second Bar + Kitchen is as classy as it gets. Pizzas for two are a budget-friendly option, but be warned: picking just one poses a real life Sophie’s Choice. Will it be it the Pizza Bianco with its ricotta, goat cheese and arugula goodness? Or the Black and Bleu with a black truffle and bleu cheese blend? You’ll just have to decide for yourself on this one. That and the extensive cocktail menu are more than ample reasons for repeat dates here.

Skip desert for late-night lattes at Café Medici’s downtown location, or wander into the Elephant Room for post-dinner drinks and nightly jazz.

Clarksville
Winflo Osteria ($30 each)
Perhaps best known for its brunch offerings, Winflo’s happy hour really is happy. The Solerno Margarita, made with Milagro Silver tequila and Italian blood orange liqueur, is nothing short of life-changing, and while none of the $6 appetizers will disappoint, the polenta fries are our personal favorite. We recommend the tables by the bookshelves, where antique portraits watch hungrily while you indulge, and where old books are available for light reading should your date go to the bathroom.

Rattle Inn
For Friday night entertainment, walk down West Sixth Street to the Rattle Inn for a whiskey on the rooftop deck or head inside for some country tunes and a little two-steppin'. If you're feeling a little lazy, stay put in Winflo’s Listening Room for your live music fix.

Tarrytown
Magnolia Café ($20 each)
While there are several East Side Kings, the original Magnolia Café on Lake Austin will forever reign as West Side Queen. Whether you're hitting it up at 3 am for an order of queso after a boozy night out (the "Mag Mud" is pure magic), or indulging in a post-run brunch, Magnolia Cafe will always be our personal pancake mecca. And we’re not alone: President Obama’s recent visit garnered the unofficial White House stamp of approval to this old Austin favorite.

Paddleboarding and kayaking
Work up an appetite for omelets with kayaks or paddleboards from the Texas Rowing Center on West Cesar Chavez. Rent a double kayak for just $20 per hour or $40 for the day. Impress your date with your core strength and rent two paddleboards for $20 each.

Easr Side Show Room is always a classic.

East Side Show Room Facebook

Easr Side Show Room is always a classic.

unspecified

road trip with a rock star

Grace Potter's SXSW Audience Award-winning film gets nationwide release

Photo courtesy of Grace Potter

Grace Potter executive produced a film about finding family through music that's premiering at SXSW in 2024.

At South by Southwest in 2024, the music documentary Resynator won the Audience Award, a contest based on audience votes right after the film is shown.

It was a stamp of approval for the film's merit beyond its star power; some people may have been drawn in knowing it was produced by musician Grace Potter or that it featured lots of her famous peers, but they ended up loving the work as a whole.

The Resynator team has now announced that people all over the country will be able to watch the film, which chronicles an early synthesizer invention and family fallout, starting December 13. Anyone can rent or buy it via AppleTV, Prime Video, Google Play, and Fandango At Home, and select theaters will play a live screening. (Unfortunately, none of them are in Austin.)

To introduce the work to new audiences, below is CultureMap's original coverage from February 9, 2024 — about a month before the film's premiere.

Grace Potter has always wanted to be someone specific and perhaps surprising: "a woman who drove an old truck and had a laundromat in Austin, Texas."

Well, we suppose there's still time for that. Before that dream is realized, she'll be a woman who plays Austin City Limits Live on February 16, then one who has executive produced a documentary premiering at South by Southwest (SXSW) on March 10, 2024. And that's nothing to scoff at.

Since the early aughts, Potter has become known as a real-deal rock musician — one who stands up to the old ideals of classic rock while embracing a more contemporary, versatile aesthetic. She's known for songs like "Paris (Ooh La La)" with her band, the Nocturnals, and "Something That I Want" as a solo project featured on the Tangled soundtrack.

Grace Potter is known for her vintage rock style.Photo courtesy of Adrien Broom

Both of her most popular songs are overtly feminine on opposite sides of the spectrum — from gritty and rebellious to hopeful and bubbly — but neither trips over the benevolently limiting tropes strewn around for women musicians. She doesn't need a schtick; she's gained rock credence from her own artistic vision as well as projects with the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones, the Allman Brothers Band, Willie Nelson, and Neil Young.

"I think that coked-up white dudes from the '70s have been celebrated a lot," says Potter from her tour bus in Macon, Georgia (of course). "And I've been a part of a lot of that celebration... The entire generation of people that made music at that time seem to just touch on a blend of musicality in an era where music from all different corners of the earth started to gel together. I think there's a real ubermusical moment there."

Resynator
Her SXSW project, Resynator, continues following the impactful-men-from-the-'70s thread through another feminine lens.

Director Alison Tavel, Potter's best friend and tour manager at the start of the film, has been collecting information for a decade about her musician father, Don Tavel, who died when she was only 10 weeks old. Don developed a synthesizer called The Resynator, which he himself called "the precursor to MIDI," but this particular synthesizer fell out of use, and it became his daughter's goal to revive it.

Money Mark and Alison TavelStill from Resynator

The film offers a tour through some of the music industry's greatest innovators and entertainers: Peter Gabriel, Fred Armisen, Gotye, Jon Anderson, Mike Gordon, and Potter's husband, producer Eric Valentine, among others. But between the star power and the electronic tinkering are more emotional, personal scenes with family. Alison's mother represents a level of complication in Don's image that was invisible to his daughter; Don's mother represents an origin for this complexity.

Potter, who appears briefly a few times, holds space for pivotal moments: the inception of the idea, the shift from fact-finding to traveling with The Resynator, and eventually, the posthumous resolution between father and daughter. Although she must have been a useful collaborator in parlaying with all these famous musicians, she is also one of the women forming the emotional core of the film.

"There were moments all along the way where [Alison] wanted to quit," says Potter. "Basically my job as EP was to get her in front of as many musicians as possible, [and to] create as many opportunities as possible for her to continue pushing through her vision and of course the occasional mental breakdown."

Family and nostalgia as art engines
A mother herself, Potter doesn't know why exactly she gravitates toward stories about family and images of nostalgia. She seems good at the common creative advice, write what you know.

She remembers as a child trying to dismantle the "female singers" section of her mother's record collection, yet now realizes its existence steered her to a strong appreciation of Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, and Nina Simone. She doesn't seek out family projects, but her latest album, Mother Road, is a direct result of returning to her hometown with her husband and son, grieving a miscarriage, and becoming obsessed with long rental car drives.

"[The nostalgia is] very much always there. It's not something at the forefront of my mind," says Potter. "It's such an amazing thing to wake up ... and to feel like I was born into the wrong time, but I love this. And [we] have the shepherds of our family to bring us to influences and inspiration that allow our creativity to flow."

She continues, referring to the familial questions that drove Resynator, "It really brought in so much gratitude for me that I had the ability to come up in a world where I didn't have to ask those questions. But it also made me [think about] my kid — Sagan, he's 6 now — what kind of table am I setting for him to sit down at?"

Texas and South by Southwest
Whatever tables she sets, the nostalgia clearly inspires some wanderlust in Potter. Although the singer is from Vermont, she grew up spending the winters with her grandparents in Albuquerque. She often uses images of the Southwest, especially in Mother Road, and has plenty of admiration for Texas as part of it.

"I just remember it being so foreign at first, the terrain and the way that the hills roll, especially as you get through New Mexico and and start entering into Texas," she says. "There's that big-sky, wide-open-range, horizon-for-days experience. I was so cosseted in Vermont. I mean, every mountain around me felt like a hug. And as I grew up, I think that curiosity and that sort of headlong-into-the-howling-wind feeling ... was urgent, like on a cellular level. And it is the epitome, I think, [of] Texas."

Grace Potter desert landscape The artsy thrifted aesthetic works for Potter wherever she goes.Photo courtesy of Grace Potter

In a much more urban sense, South by Southwest represents a similar unknown in its potential for making creative encounters. (If you see her this year, ask her about Dr. Dog, Jack Antonoff, Phoenix, Robert Plant, and her hotel room party.) She's been going in various capacities since 2005, and always leaves room in her schedule for impromptu collaborations.

"There's so many things about the film industry and the music industry that I've always enjoyed, that cross over," Potter says. "And South by Southwest is one of the rare places where you can really actively see it happening. You can see and meet filmmakers who are inherently inspired by [music] — sometimes even their whole story starts with a song."

"It's been many years of me wanting to find my footing in both the film and music worlds ... and make some kind of a Trojan horse out of the whole thing," she concludes. "And it's finally starting to come together. It only took me 20 years."

music film movies sxsw texas live music