The Chupacabra Hot Dog Cart

This little Hot Dog Cart is located convenienty on 6^th street near all the bars/​clubs. Great place to grab some food when you have munchies. And they give you a huge dog! Finally got to taste how some Texan hot dogs were, and they were not bad, but not so good to the point that made it memorable for me.

Are you into paying eight dollars for spending a night on the toilet screaming and moaning in regret and pain? If so, here’s your chance to shine!
Seriously, don’t go home with someone after having one of these über disgusting and overpriced slabs of meat. You’ll end up never having sex with them… not that night or any other night. (Because no one wants to do someone that stunk up their bathroom the very first night of hooking up.)
Besides all that, one guy who works here slammed my friend’s order into her hands with such sloppy coordination and violent force that it went all over her dress and the sidewalk curb. She told him nicely that she wanted another one and he ignored her as though she wasn’t there. When she demanded her money back, he said it wasn’t his problem. Being on sixth street, you’d probably read this and think she was an incoherent drunk girl. But she was not drinking and got treated like trash. I don’t care if your lousy ass job is working at a hot dog stand, just do it right and treat customers right. How effing hard is that?
Just go to the pizza stand behind the Chupacabra cart. It’s five bucks for a huge slice, has never made me sick, and the people are usually friendly enough to make me put my hand in the tip jar.

If you like spicy food, WOW, you gotta try El Diablo! I don’t know if I was just hungry after a crazy night on 6^th Street but it was crazy delicious! The toppings are wonderful, the meat was juicy, and it really hit the spot at 2am.
Definitely stop by next time you’re on 6^th!

I’m still dreaming of my spicy, Bacon topped hot dog. I need one of these places in Dallas!

Awesome wieners are awesome.
Mine came loaded with chipotle mayo (that was suprirsingly spicy for chipotle anything), cheese and jalapeños, so it was a tasty, tasty treat. The hot dog itself had a decent flavor to it. The only part that let me down was the bun, which was just an average store-​bought bun that was overloaded by all the toppings. I almost needed a fork to devour this behemoth.
6^th Street is, well, 6^th Street. Lots of «wooooo, no parents!”-types for the people-​watching. I saw a herd of drunk bros who were plastered by 9:30 on my trip over to Chupacabra’s wiener stand. Bromance, spiky hair, and matching neon orange socks. I lol’d. To be honest, I prefer the more laid-​back vibe of 5^th, but hey, when you’re downtown and you’re hungry, even the horses start to look like delicious, tasty meat. This hot dog stand was a Godsend, and my dinner was pleasant enough to be memorable.

decent hot dog. we got the cuban which came with pulled pork, mustard, pickles, aioli.
not top quality but will do the job that late at night.
best qurst is definitely better.

This is another of 6^th Street’s better street cart dining experiences. It comes in at number two for me, just behind The Best Wurst. Chupacabra has slightly more selection than most places and its prices are on par with those of their competition.
I opted for the Hot Dog with cheese and onions. It was huge! Overflowing with cheese and onions just like I like them, I was forced to eat this thing with a fork. I added a little ketchup and it was just great!
The only downsides to me where that it was incredibly messy, considering you have to eat it on the curb, but besides that I think this place is just awesome. Just if you are going to eat here, do it after you’ve hit the club not before. It sucks when you’re all prepped for a good time and you get a big glob of ketchup on your shirt!
If the line is too big at best wurst or they are not open you will most certainly find me enjoying The Chupacabra!

Yeah! This sums up so much about what is awesome about the downtown Austin experience. The weekend we were there, anyway…
6^th Street downtown (the main bar crawl area) is shut down to cars, so the streets are taken over with drunken pedestrians roaming in search of booze, food, and general good times. Sure you have your share of douchebags, but’s that’s a given as far as drunken mobs go. As far as Austin locals, they were a laid-​back, cool lot that reminded me of a less pretentious San Francisco crowd: not too hipster to be obnoxious, and with less expensive tattoos.
If you’re 21, many of the downtown live music venues allow ins and outs. Between bands (about 12:45 or so), my friend and I decided to take a break from Emo’s and grab a bite to eat. We walked down 6^th St. about 4 blocks and ran into the Chupacabra Hot Dog Cart.
There are about 6 items to choose from. I had a spicy hot dog with pulled pork, aioli mustard, shredded cheese, and pickles. I must admit, I had my doubts about having to put pulled pork on a hot dog… that may be too much of a good thing… but all doubts were removed when I bit into it. The hot dog had the perfect «snap» to the casing, the pulled pork was melt-​in-​your-​mouth tender, and the mustard, cheese and pickles added just the right amount of tang to complete the experience.
The price was about $ 4.25-$ 4.50. Some might say that’s too much for a hot dog when you can buy one at 7 – 11 for less, but when it comes to quality street food, it was well worth every penny. Plus it was absolutely packed with toppings, so one hot dog was easily a full meal. Two dogs would have been positively gluttonous, and near impossible.
The street food concept rules. There’s something about eating outside, or walking down the street while eating, that makes it more fun. The social interactions outside the carts can be pretty unique, and there’s a good mix of people that makes every experience memorable. There was another good German sausage-​type cart that was right outside Emo’s the night before, but I can’t recall the name.
That said, you might want to be cautious if you choose to experience downtown Austin’s hip-​hop scene. After exiting Emo’s the night before, a friend and I witnessed a pretty brutal street beatdown between two women. As a mixture of punks and hip-​hoppers poured out of the bars, someone yelled «it’s a real fight!!» and a huge mob formed. After some energetic fisticuffs and weave-​pulling, the fight broke up and the mob dissipated. The moral here is, less fighting, more street food eating! I guarantee, if these girls had sucked down one less drink apiece, and each eaten a Chupacabra hot dog to soak up the booze, there would have been a lot more peace in the Austin streets.