Weekend Roundup

Here are the top 5 things to do in Austin this weekend

Finish up the last week of January with a weekend you won’t forget. We’ve compiled the five best events in the city everyone from your kiddos to your happy hour buddies will love. For a full list of happenings, check out our events calendar.

Crowler Cup Competition
Skip your traditional happy hour plans and head to the east side Thursday evening for some friendly — and boozy — competition. Round up the gang and head to Cuvee Coffee Bar to test and vote for your best locally brewed drink. Six East Austin booze companies will compete for the coveted Crowler Cup with the help of your taste buds. To sweeten the deal, Veracruz will be on location for the perfect taco complement to your brew.

Harlem Globetrotters 2016 World Tour
Catch the Harlem Globetrotters on their 90th anniversary world tour for one weekend only at the Frank Erwin Center. This kid-friendly event is as much a high-energy show as it is a basketball game. With a star-studded roster and flashy ball handling, the entire family will enjoy this memorable basketball game. Grab tickets and be part of the basketball magic this Thursday and Friday.

Sixth Annual Austin Gorilla Run
Get ready to run wild at the sixth annual Austin Gorilla Run. Don your gorilla (or banana) costume provided with registration and run to benefit endangered mountain gorillas. Meet at Camp Mabry and ape out all the way through the racecourse knowing that you’re doing your part to help these incredible creatures. Get the whole family registered for a fun Saturday morning together. And make sure to stretch because this race is bananas.

Grace Potter in concert
Rock songstress Grace Potter will perform Saturday at ACL Live. Potter will grace the stage with songs from her debut solo album, Midnight. This is a concert you won’t want to miss, so purchase your tickets while you still can. There's no doubt you’ll be in for a rockin’ night of good vibes and even better music.

Bunkhouse Group presents Jo’s 10th Annual Chili Cook Off
Bring your appetite and all of your friends to Jo’s Coffee on South Congress Avenue on Sunday for the 10th Annual Chili Cook Off. Snag a ticket and taste the best chili recipes in the city and weigh in on who wins bragging rights. Live sounds by Jeff Hughes and Chaparral along with Jo’s House Band will keep you grooving while you indulge. Proceeds from the cook off will benefit local hunger issues, ensuring that you’ll eat good and feel good too.

Go bananas — or dress like one — for the sixth annual Gorilla Run.

Austin Gorilla Run/Facebook

Go bananas — or dress like one — for the sixth annual Gorilla Run.

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This week's hot headlines

Wurstfest waltzes into this week's 5 hottest Austin headlines

Photo courtesy of Wurstfest

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Editor's note: A lot happened this week, so here's your chance to get caught up. Read on for the week's most popular headlines. Looking for the best things to do this weekend? Find that list here.

1. New Braunfels sausage and beer extravaganza Wurstfest returns for 2024. German culture is on display in many subtle ways throughout Texas' historic towns; Wurstfest is not one of those ways. This oompah-driven, battered-and-fried, lederhosen-clad beer and sausage festival is coming back to New Braunfels for its annual festivities November 1-10.

2. Sixth Street icehouse branches out with posh, old-school sports club. There’s no shortage of spots to grab a drink in East Austin. But despite the area’s wide range of bar offerings — from cocktail lounges to dives — it comes up surprisingly short on sports bars. Enter Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (WTF) Sporting Club, which is taking over the giant East 7th space vacated earlier this year by Easy Tiger.

3. Austin's famous Katz's makes a comeback in the same location. There is good news this week for all Austinites pining for a simpler — and if you ask them, better — Austin of the past. The beloved West 6th Street eatery Katz's is making a comeback more than 10 years after it famously closed. Someone in the Katz family has re-purchased the original location and is hoping to bring back the good old days.

4. Popular Austin hospitality group stirs up sunny new daytime cafe. Since debuting in 2009, Jack Allen’s Kitchen’s weekend brunch has been a staple of Austin’s many best-of lists. Now, owners Jack Gilmore and Tom Kamm are upping the ante. The restaurateurs have founded a new concept, Day Maker Half Day Café, to bring that AM magic seven days a week.

5. Spectacular Austin Trail of Lights gets even more festive with weddings. Locals who feel sentimental about the 60-year-old Austin Trail of Lights now have a shimmering new way to make it part of their personal stories. Surely many have proposed to partners at the Christmas installation, but now they can get married there, too.