Poodle Dog Lounge

Reddit Austin notes that old school Burnet Road dive bar Poodle Dog Lounge has «temporarily» shuttered. The bar closed its doors on Tuesday, November 5^th, just shy of its 50^th anniversary. According to their Facebook page, the shutter was unexpected. Their closing note reads: «This information was just given to me today… apologies to the bands that had upcoming dates.»
Later updates state that the bar is under «new ownership» and will re-​open in as soon as three weeks, potentially with a liquor license. Previously, Poodle Dog only served beer and allowed patrons to BYOB their liquor. No word yet on who the new owners are; watch this space for updates.
· The Poodle Dog Lounge Closed? [Reddit]
· The Poodle Dog Lounge [Facebook]
Poodle Dog Lounge
6507 Burnet Rd Austin, TX 78 757

I walked out of the bar, proud of myself for the decision I made in buying a bag of M&Ms before leaving, to find a drunk man peeing on my car tire who then tried to pat me on the back and called me dollface once I told him that was my car.
And my experience here is completely summed up by that statement.

The Poodle dog is a place you love or hate. It’s been around for goddamn forever and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. If you don’t mind canned beers, smoking inside, and seeing some generally pretty insane people, this is your place. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

Beer in cans and a shuffle board table. Smoke inside, pool tables galore. What else do you need. Austin’s second greatest Dive Bar (after Lala’s). Real Austinites know it and love it. Everyone else can go swill overpriced mixed drinks on Sixth and pretend to be cool with the college kids and the tatted hipsters.

If you are one of those people that likes beer for breakfast, this is your place. If you are a blue collar worker, on your lunch break, this is your place. Maybe you enjoy good dive bars, strange conversation, and cold cheap beer… You have found your home, my friend. Welcome to Poodle Dog.
So grab your toothless friend, and head here for a cheap, and smokey night.
Yee-​Hah!

Barmaid and customers friendly, beer cheap and a back in time sorta place. If you went in more than a couple of times everyone would know your name.
If you are looking for what a bar was like in the 60’s this is it.

I’ve been passing by this place for quite some time. I kept saying «Thats where I want to go.» The place is quite eye-​catching when you drive by. I don’t know what took me so long to finally come here. But this is definitely not your «Hey let me dress to impress» sort of place. And I’m all about that.
My friends and I read some reviews about this place before we came. Most of it was all true. Free shuffleboard, lots of pool tables, smoking is still in effect inside here, and cash only! Unilocal proved to be veryyyy helpful! We came here because we wanted to have a shuffleboard tournament. And drink cheap drinks. And not have to go far from home (or really far from our pre-​drinking location). This proved to be a good choice. $ 15 for 5 Miller Lites? Score. Oh and they played Johnny Cash the entire time we were there :) with a bit of Fleetwood Mac as well. Perfect evening.
Now as I sit here trying to remember the details about the bar… there were TONS of Marilyn Monroe pictures EVERYWHERE. The walls were covered. And I love Marilyn so this just added to to awesomeness of the place. At some point I couldn’t find the ladies room and some guy who looked like he belonged in a Robert Rodriguez film pointed me in the right direction. Nice local people here. I enjoyed myself. A great dive bar on Burnet.

This is a dive. And not the kind of college town self-​proclaimed «dive» that’s overcrowded with frat boys, poppin’ them collars (do people still do that?) spending the ‘rents hard earned money on cheap Miller Light. This is MY kind of dive bar. The kind where when you walk up to the bar, the toothless guy next to you yells the bartender’s name to get her to serve you.
Musts for Poodle Dog?
1. Bring cash.
2. If you’re sitting in the front room while a live band is playing, either bring earplugs and use sign language to communicate to your friends, or consider playing pictionary in lieu of actual conversation… because you won’t hear a darn thing.
3. Just be ready to smell like smoke, because there’s no question that you’re going to whether you like it or not.
Recommendations?
1. If you’re driving, just park on the street behind the bar. Unlined parking lots make me nervous that some drunk in his ’89 Dodge Ram is going to take off my mirror. Now that I’ve said that, it’s probably going to happen.
2. Bring quarters. Trust me: you’re going to want to play pool. The good news is that it’s really easy to get a table, even on a weekend night.
3. Don’t be fancy. It’s a dive. A dark, dingy, dirty dive.

Either you get it, or you don’t.
Wanna talk to some real people? Free Shuffleboard and 2.50 Pearl ;^)

I can think of three things that are totally stainful about a dive bar and this place is all three. Smoking, cash only, and painfully loud music.
Sure they have lots of pool tables but can you really enjoy them if you can’t see your friends through the 12 inches of smoke? Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration but dang, it is pretty gross in there.
If you like getting hit on by toothless men while listen to a group of burned out hippies playing heavy metal and inhaling 10 years of lung cancer, then this is the bar for you. You’re welcome for finding it for you! :)

I’m not «ironically un-​cool» enough to seek out any dives or even frequent said bars but every now and then a friend will catch me off guard. This is the case for my Poodle Dog Lounge experience.
We went on a Sunday to meet some friends around 1 am, so there wasn’t a huge crowd. We played pool while a giant fan kept us cool. The employees are friendly with just a dash of «sass». The jukebox is what really sold me… If I can hear Billy Joel in the same sitting that I hear Flock of Seagulls, you can color me «satisfied».
I hear Thursdays are «Hillbilly Thursdays» which is definitely something I would be «ironically uninterested» in attending.

I first came here in 2005 and it felt like the most perfect dive bar in the world now. The digital jukebox means any Alice Cooper track on the planet can be played for you at that moment. Skee-​ball is free. The pool cues are warped and the tables poorly-​lit.
In short, this is a perfect bar to get lost in for a few hours drinking beer, playing pool, and listening to Alice Cooper.

If you want some cheap brew and a few games of billiards, then this is your spot.
It is a true dive and has some characters in it, which is awesome, but it also has a lot of normal people just having a good time. I don’t find myself up there very often, and if I do, I prefer a stronger drink at Lala’s, but this place is worth a visit.
Remember to bring cash!

Friday night, my date and I played $ 1 pool, though The Poodle has no Newcastle or Fireman’s 4 for some reason. No matter. Rockin’ Jukebox spun ELO’s Don’t Bring Me Down and Link Ray and his Ray Men’s Rumble. As I have said before, a tastefully-​stocked jukebox is a surefire way to make me smile.
Oh and in case it wasn’t clear from the other 27 reviews before me:
Yes: your UNDERGARMENTS will even reek of smoke after nigh 45 minutes spent in the Poodle. Though I honestly only saw two peeps lighting up the entire time, but I’m certain the walls just emanate years of smoke from generations long before us.
So, Poodle walls: Don’t bring me dowwwwn, grosss

I had to laugh when I read some recent reviews of this place. Everybody’s got to go here at least once, because this is an Austin landmark.
Been here a couple of times for a beer. Had thoughts of playing pool, but the smoke was too thick. We must have looked like we weren’t going to narc, because no one put out their smokes. But we did get the once over from the bartender and the regulars. No real food here, just snacks, IIRC.
Cheap beer takes a toll on your liver and cheap smokes take a toll on your lungs. Recommended for all you alcoholic coal miners out there.

So, a friend of mine gets this brilliant idea that all of his favorite bars happen to be stops on the #3 Austin city bus route, and for his 40^th birthday he wants everyone to ride the bus with him and go to all his favorite bars. Starting at 10am. Presumably going until 11pm.
We chose to start a bit later than the beer-​for-​breakfast crowd, starting at Trudy’s north. The 2^nd place we did go was The Poodle Dog Lounge. Which I’d never been in… and apparently for good reason.
We walk in, and 6 patrons at the bar look at us. They size us up to be Austin yuppies (which is damn funny given the people that actually walk in. Isn’t class warfare a fun home game?). They’re also ALL SMOKING. As fast as you can say «oh shit» all cigarettes are extinguished and the ash trays mystically disapper. «Honestly officer… we weren’t smoking.» No son, I’m sure this 3-​foot thick cloud of smoke is from the fire that was just put out in the ladies room. And that smell of Pall Mall non-​filters is just week-​old beer stench.
Needless to say, the reg’lars were really pissed that we stayed for more than 5 minutes. And we probably stayed for an hour. Why? Well, for starters half the party was already drunk at 2pm, and the rest of us were just grooving on the fact that Blatz, Pabst, and Schlitz were actually being sold at this place. And Shelley the bartendress didn’t give away that we were keeping everyone from their daily smoking quotient, so as a group we were kind of ignorantly bliss. And shooting pool. They loved us, really they did.
4 stars for the humor value, 1 star for the trip down bad-​beer memory lane, –2 stars for the 3 years the air took off my life.

I’ve officially been to the Poodle Dog Lounge. For two minutes. The cigarette smoke was so thick in the air that we quickly sat down. And then got right back up.
As our group of six walked towards the door, an old geezer with a cigarette between his fingers sitting at the bar turned around and yelled, «Wait, don’t go!»
Maybe the Poodle Dog got grandfathered OUT of the city’s no smoking ordinance. But I don’t think so.
Two stars because, well, it’s the Poodle Dog!

There’s no dressing up the Poodle Dog Lounge, and that’s one of the spot-​on reasons it’s fun. Last time I stopped in here I made the comical decision to ask for a receipt; this, as you might imagine, was met with a puzzling stare… but I’ll be darned if the gal behind the bar didn’t crank one out for me. Handwritten, haphazard, it might as well have been a prescription. But fun? Whoa, brother, we had fun.
It’s pretty much what you might expect: some pool tables, a bar stretch, giant mirrors and crawling with regulars. But it’s also a longstanding Austin dive, which means that most of the regulars are pretty chill, the music you’ll likely encounter is stuff you may not find abhorrent, and for all the cheap brews you encounter, you may well end up remembering more of your stay here than you’d predict. And you may end up retracing those steps down the road.

This is the kind of place that I like to go to, although I was a little apprehensive upon walking in. It’s like in the cartoons when you hear crickets to signify an awkward moment. Sure, everyone stared at me when I walked in and when my friend walked in, but they warmed up after a while.
The warm up, though, could’ve been in part due to an… interesting convo I had with the female bartender in the restroom (no doors, ladies, just two stalls… jeez, I should make an awkward bathroom list).
This place is the definition of a dive bar. Lots of pool tables, a jukebox with lots of selections of music (it’s an internet one, however, you can download new songs for extra money), the still smoking although Austin is now «smoke free,» and the good ol’ Cheers feel. By the time I left, after way too many beers on a Wednesday night, I almost felt like a regular.
The «welcoming committee» told us all about the different live shows on the weekends, I’ll definately come to check them out sometime. He said that they vary from country, to rock, to surprising randomness.
As everyone else has said, cash only, so hit up the ATM before you hit this place up. In addition to all this stuff, the main allure to me is that I heard that Mike Judge hangs out here. Confirmation, anyone? He wasn’t there the night that I was… just another reason to go again!
Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name!

This place is a hellhole. But its MY hellhole, and that’s why I love it.
Crackheads, bikers, alcoholics, criminals — and all usually the same person… sit beside hipsters, rockabillys, outlaws, in-​laws, toothless old ladies looking to get laid…
The pood is not for everyone. You can’t do shots unless you bring your own bottle. The bathrooms are horrendous. The shuffleboard table is falling apart, but there are seven pool tables. They don’t take credit cards. The bartenders can be cruel and mean and will throw you out if you don’t understand how to respect your ‘tender.
They recently updated their juke to an ‘internet’ jukebox, with the standard outlaw and old school country, metal, and rockabilly being the «loaded» music that costs less to play, but you can spend hours just pickin songs that nobody has ever heard of. Just dont piss off the bartender, cause she’ll gladly skip your song or turn it down if its not to her liking.
Beer is cheap, and in cans, mostly. You’ll get strange looks if you order the smirnoff wild grape, especially if you have a penis.
If you’re clean cut and are the type of person who gets ‘the vapors’ or some such fake ailment when you see something socially awkward, like smoking in a bar where its illegal, or a fight, you probably should just stay home and watch Heroes or something.
Some of the best (and worst) music in austin happens here, and you dont even have to pay for it. Sunny Sweeney used to play every sunday, until she got her big record deal, and the other bands that regularly play the Pood range from amazingly talented to horrendously hilarious, but its always a show.