50 Sure Signs That AUSTIN Is Actually Utopia

Things To Do In Austin | 10 Feb 2013

1. Two Words. Texas. Football.

2. Thanks to Kerbey Lane you can eat queso 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

photo credit: Kerbey Lane Facebook Page
3. Give or take 100 steps to one of the best views in the state.

4. Leslie.

5. We like our alcohol like we like our women, sweet.

photo source: theurbangrocer.com

6. Our Winters, Springs, and Falls are amazing…3 out of 4 isn’t bad.

7. Street Art.
8. Dogs are just as good as first borns.

9. A slice of paradise circles the city known as The Greenbelt.

10. The coolest way to cool off, SnoBeach.
11. We have a street and a statue honoring Willie Nelson.
12. The highest flying festival in Texas, The Zilker Kite Festival.
13. The Veloway.

photo credit: activeatx.com
14. Formula One couldn’t get to Austin fast enough.
15. Barton Springs.
16. The birthplace of Torchy’s Tacos.
17. ACL, SXSW, Austin Reggae Festival, Lone Star Jam, Blues On The Green, Pecan Street Festival….need I Go On?

18. The often over 2 hour line at Franklin BBQ is well worth the wait. photocredit: andrewzimmern.com
19. Alamo Drafthouse took movie watching to a new level.
20. Austinites come together to share their holiday spirit as they decorate the 360 Cedar Trees each year.
21. Death by sandwich. Hey, You Gonna Eat or What’s Monte Cristo.
22. Everything in Texas is bigger, including our Capitol.

23. Only in Austin do we celebrate Chicken Sh*t at Chicken Sh*t BINGO.
24. Travel back in time & catch a movie at the world’s first & only Mini Urban Drive-In Movie.
25. Austin. Texas. Sunsets.
26. Spinning under the Zilker Tree.
27. You are never too old to play Peter Pan Mini Golf.
28. Golden Gate has nothing on the Pennybacker Bridge.
29. You might run into Sandra Bullock or Matthew McConaughey at Whole Foods.
30. Austin is such a great place to live our Animal Shelter is no kill. (this cat is actually available for adoption!)
31. Bevo.
32. Roller Derby is one of the city’s favorite pastimes. photo credit: texasrollergirls.org
33. Top Chef Winner, Paul Qui cooks us dinner daily.
34. Other cities celebrate the birthday of former Presidents, we celebrate a storybook character yearly at Eeyore’s Birthday.
35. Home Slice Pizza hit it out of the park. photo source: Home Slice Pizza facebook page.
36. Austinites know how to do a Sunday Brunch.
37. South Congress is so unique and full of local treasures it almost feels like a city of its own.
38. It doesn’t have to be Halloween for us to appreciate bats.
39. You can eat trailer food for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert.
40. We don’t need clubs to play golf.
41. Blue Bell? Nah, we’ve got Amy’s.
42. The creme de la creme of local bars, Rainey Street.
43. Namaste Yall.

44. Texas may have invented Tex Mex but Trudy’s mastered it.

45. Austinites like to shop and eat local at our local farmers markets.
46. Even our bling is local.
47. Austinites are weird and we are keeping it weird.
48. Trails, trails, trails and more trails.
49. Austin Bike Zoo.
50. Much in the same way Texans have pride in their state, Austinites take pride in their city. You see it everywhere you go, walking down the street, in local shops and conversations. Austinites are proud, loud, and happy to call this great city home.

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Tags: 50 signs austin utopia, austin

About the Author: Kristy Owen

Wayne Alderman

Makes me miss home… although seattle is not a bad second place…
Jim

Austin insists upon itself. It is so insecure about its identity it constantly tries to validate itself by citizens bragging about how great it is. I’d much rather live in a city that just IS awesome like San Diego or Chicago
- Marjean Fieldhouse
  
  never been here have ya Jim
- Lol
  
  Substitute “Austin” with “Humans” and you may have a point, but a city is not a conscious being, and cannot brag about itself. Also, you probably haven’t been here. Plenty of refugees from San Diego and Chicago have been and are here currently, though.
- http://www.facebook.com/gino.schafer.5 Gino Schafer
  
  Chicago is a rat hole. Seriously, the murder capital of the USA.
- Dan Whitehead
  
  I guess our sub 5% unemployment and constantly being on Forbes top 10 list from healthiest city to fastest growing has us looking like were tooting our own horn, when in fact most of these list are not created by us. I’m sure it just make you jealous so I definately understand.
- http://www.facebook.com/david.benton.144 David Benton
  
  Jim, roll up a fat one and relax, dude.
- stephen
  
  nah man.. you don’t want to go to any of those places. san diego is frickin’ great! had a blast while i was there, but it’s too much like austin, so you’d just be living in another austin. chicago is just bloody dangerous. there are some good parts, granted, but not enough good to compensate for the bad.
- IlliniGuy
  
  I moved to Austin from Chicago after living there for almost 20 year. Chicago is a pathetic excuse for a city, and a shithole.
  
  Good luck there, though!
Nikki

torchys taco is originally from fort worth,TX not Austin
- MeanGreen
  
  uh…are you thinking about Fuzzy’s? Torchy’s is from Austin
austin

Leslie is dead.
Joe

I can agree with most of this list, but I have to take a stand against #44. I’m sorry Austin- Trudy’s is NOT that good- for God’s sake, they don’t even have homemade tortillas! That alone should discredit this place as a good Tex-Mex joint, let alone “best in Austin,” which it has inexplcably won in several publications.

I will never understand the hype around this place. You can easily find at least ten spots in either San Antonio or Houston that blow Trudy’s out of the water. I love this city, but it might be the weakest of the major cities in Texas as far as Tex-Mex cuisine goes. The drinks are great, I’ll grant that, but c’mon Austin, surely we can do better than this?
- Dan Whitehead
  
  I have to agree here Trudys and Torchys are not the best for either restaurant type. I’d go we La Condesa (restaurant) and Mi Madres or Changos (for taco stops)
- http://twitter.com/geohams George D. Hamilton
  
  seconded
- eric
  
  Trudys staff is super pretentious, I love the drinks, but not all the rules and rude staff. Specifically can’t seat more than 8 patrons (most places will find a solution when a party of 8 shows up) plenty of room, just policy more than 8 folks can’t sit together If you have an out of state ID they need an act of congress to approve it. And I’m 35!
http://twitter.com/fancypantsATX Dani Dudek

Is this list copied from a few years back? There are some dated entries.
http://about.me/egoiste egoiste

#17 yes you need go on: fun fun fun fest
- http://twitter.com/geohams George D. Hamilton
  
  again seconded
  - RamblinRoyce
    
    No, don’t hype fun fun fest or it will turn into the monstrosity and atrocity that is the ACL Festival.
Francis

Didn’t I just see this on Buzzfeed?
- Transplant
  
  The Buzzfeed list was why Texas is Utopia – this one has been modified to be Austin-only. (And fortunately remove Sweet Tea, which several of my native-Texan friends protested against, since they don’t like it that much. As a native Georgian, I have to agree – Sweet Tea is Southern, not Texan, and despite what the Yankees may think, those terms are not interchangeable!)
  - RamblinRoyce
    
    Agreed. Who made this list? Doubtful a native Austinite or even a Native Texan. Sweet Tea has never been a part of Texas until recently. That’s like Southerners claiming Tex-Mex as part of their heritage.
    
    While I applaud your list and the great photos you’ve compiled, I’d have to agree with the thousands of disgruntled Austinites who have seen a great city ruined by growth and population. I’ve since moved to a smaller town in Texas which is much friendlier, considerate, and not full of pretentious, unjustifiably wealthy, transplant a**holes. To each their own. Obviously, there are plenty of people who love this kind of city… and they keep moving into Austin.
    
    Adios the once great TOWN of Austin of yester-decade. Ola overpriced big city-hole of Austin today and onwards to the Future!
    
    Just please don’t move to the smaller GREAT Towns of Texas and ruin them too. Fortunately, ‘m certain you won’t. Cuz here we’re conservative, closed-minded, and un-cultured. Stay away.
Brooksy

And our animal shelter is NOT no-kill, we just have some awesome rescue groups who take animals out of the shelter and foster them so they won’t be killed due to lack of space.
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http://www.facebook.com/samuelsmom09 Hannah Rogers Robertson

Why is that most of the stuff mentioned on this kinda thing is downtown-ish? We are moving to Austin and my hubs has been here a year and I’ve been here twice for several weeks and there’s lots of cool stuff everywhere, not just downtown – and not all as “hipster.” I love my homestate of Alabama but I have to admit the sheer amount of VARIETY is what floors me with Austin. Maybe I’m just used to small towns but I’ve been to larger cities in the south and so far none have come close to the variety of freakin’ everything that Austin has. I mean I agree that downtown Austin is awesome compared to any others I’ve been to but if ya want to tout Austin’s greatness, tout it about the whole package not just downtown + parks.
- Boo
  
  You’d have a point if you could list something in the ‘burbs that is worth listing. We’ll wait.
  - RamblinRoyce
    
    There are parks surrounding the city. Not to mention the Lakes, Greenbelts, Hiking Areas, Dog Parks, Golf Courses, Frisbee Parks, Old School Home Country diners, Music Venues, Antique shops, etc… But for you, please stay in the area that you’ve RUINED by moving into your loft or condo in DOWNTOWN Austin where you can be hip and cool. Fortunately, Austin can still be enjoyed by NEVER Going downtown and if you knew the vibe of many local Austinites who’ve been in Austin for over a decade, Many of them RARELY OR NEVER go Downtown anymore. Again, Thank you for RUINING DOWNTOWN.
    
    Oh yeah, and we don’t want to list any specific places by their specific names or else it will be overrun by pretentious, list following, yelping, tweeting, urban spooning, transplant douchebags.
RamblinRoyce

Austin USED TO BE GOOD. Then people from New York, California, and elsewhere sold their house for $100k’s and Moved to Austin. Then the prices escalated, the streets became overcrowded, the Beautiful Nature Reserves became ‘hotspots’, the festivals became ‘must attend if you’re somebody’, and austin slowly deteriorated into a typical ‘hotpsot’ city that many others have succumbed to. And yes, it is the natural cycle of greatness, then shittiness, which occurs to all cities. Now, Austin is another big shitty toen like all of the others.

Great list, too bad you have to pay $10+ to visit or attend any of the ’50 Utopia Austin’ events or whatever BS you call it. RIP Austin that was good and great. Hello Austin that is overpopulated, overpriced, and overhyped. Again, a natural order of cities and growth. The truly kick-ass have moved out of austin. What a shame.