Whisler’s

As many others have stated, Whisler’s is definitely one of my all-​time favorite Austin bars. The inside décor and interior are beautiful in and of themselves. The restoration and the tiny details make it a special place. The outdoor patio is huge and great for people watching.
They make a great Old Fashioned and you can get it on Happy Hour everyday for $ 6 (I think?). All the cocktails are high quality and hand-​made; you usually can’t go wrong with anything on their menu. Don’t like cocktails… head to the Mezcal Tasting Room upstairs. Green means go!
Hungry? Don’t stress… East Side King and usually another food truck will be operating to fill your stomach with goodness while you down delicious, potent cocktails!
Come on down, enjoy the East Side, and revel in the awesomeness that is The ever-​changing Austin.

It’s ok.
Located in a re-​gentrifying neighboring east of I35.
The building is super cool. Historical and preserved. Also not air conditioned.
Drinks were good enough. Clearly good bartenders. But, you’ll wait for a drink if they don’t know you and pay a handsome price.
The Thai food truck is pretty tasty, especially the beef dish.

Love this place. They used the old space so well. Great drinks. Great people. Something for everyone.

This a gem on E 6^th. As I follow one of my favorite Austin DJs Dj chicken george I saw him spinning at this location. We have been to other spots close by but never to this location. Sunday night, we have nothing planned. So we get dressed, jeans, bikes and a blouse. Hubby similar with a hat. When we arrive it was bump’n. Music was good and ppl looked happy. So we find a parking spot in front. Free on Sunday. Walk in, ID’d and go straight to the bar. We order an Upside down cocktail. I liked it but for the price, I wasn’t that impressed. All the drinks sound great on paper. Free we get our drink we go enjoy the Dj spin. The music was really loud but it was probably bc we were in front of the speaker. It was a little hot so, a fan would have been nice. They are dog friendly which is great, I love dogs. Again Kia toon, ppl and drinks were Good. Great for large groups.

Awesome, awesome bar. Vibe is 10/​10, bartenders are super fun + chill + easy to talk to, and drinks are quite tasty (and strong!)
The perfect place to come to if you’re in the mood to sip on an awesome drink + just take in an awesome atmosphere. Beautiful, opening seating outside but arguably the rustic feel of the inside is just plain cooler. Definitely is one of the cooler looking bars I’ve been to — still remember what it looks like pretty clearly in my head, and the Austin trip was around half a year ago.
Apparently happy hour here is the scene, but if you don’t come for that, be prepared to spend $ 10+ on your drink. That being said, they are well-​made and the menu has some awesome innovations on it. Apparently there’s also a good amount of live music here (but we unfortunately didn’t catch any when we stopped by).

So far, this is my favorite bar in Austin. You cannot possibly deny that the vibe in this place is incredibly cool. It’s as if a nuclear holocaust happened and 30 years later they decided to open a bar in an abandoned warehouse. So much patina and character and executed in a way that makes it look like they weren’t trying.
The bartender was ultra friendly and as soon as I mentioned that I was in the military it was a free drink on the house (I don’t usually offer this information out to just anyone, but he was friendly and was asking what brought me out to Texas). The cocktails are crafted with care and are delicious. We were there during happy hour and I was happy to pay $ 7 for my next few cocktails.
Step outside and there’s a wide open space with plenty of seating. Then you turn to the left and see the East Side Kings food truck. Does it get any better than this. Drinking an excellent drink in the sun, outside, and eating from arguably one of the best food trucks in Austin. Nope, it doesn’t.

One of my favorite happy hour spots in Austin! Whisler’s offers an array of craft cocktails and beer. My favorite is ‘down the rabbit hole’! A carrot juice based martini. Very unique and stiff like a good martini should be. Don’t be fooled, they go down smoothly, but will sneak up on you.
My boyfriend loves their old fashion. Also, it’s one of the best in Austin.
For an added treat, eat at the food truck in the back! Get the fried chicken. You can thank me later. :)

I’m a fan of this cocktail bar! Very East Austin-​y and the indoor décor is so rustic.
It’s about $ 10 a cocktail, but the two I tried were really good and worth the price in my opinion. I’ll definitely have to come during happy hour another time. There’s even an East Side King food truck right outside if you get hungry.
There’s a ton of outdoor seating, so it’s a great place to bring your pet (one of the employees even offered my friend a water bowl for her dog!)

I swear this has to be the most charming bar I have ever been to. I went upstairs to a small aged rustic room. In the corner a man playing Spanish guitar. Room surrounded with wood & candles. The bar tender, with so much knowledge about Mezcal Tequila… Just so much Romanic.
We walked down stairs to the covered bar area out side. When ordering our drinks all of a sudden, a 40’s French song came on & I was lost.
When the song changed I realized each section of the whistlers bar just takes you away. Everything tied together making me fall in love with the place.
The bathroom had a creepy soldered iron unique feel to it.
There was another room, but we had to leave.
When I peaked it too had its own old décor charm about it. Seats surround by a bar.
Definitely recommend this place & I’m coming back.

Cool hipster bar, definitely east Austin material. The outdoor area is very nice, with an intimate inside area as well. East side king has a food truck parked in the patio if you get hungry! Cocktails are very artsy and tasteful. I had the Josephine baker (kind of like a fancy screwdriver) and the lava la Sanga? (Some tequila cocktail, which kind of was like a sweeter Bloody Mary). Fun spot with cool vibes and great crowds!

I love the vibe at Whisler’s… It was the first spot I strolled through a few years ago when I first visited Austin. The seen at Whisler’s has shifted as the area becomes more and more trendy but the drinks, bartenders, and space remain awesome! They definitely take their alcohol seriously at this spot and always have a blend of super tasty, seasonal, flavors… So please stop on by and grab a seat on their lovely patio!

This place has quickly shot up to one of the top bars I’d head back to downtown. (or rather, super east side… is that really downtown now!?! I think it is. I feel old.)
The happy hour menu is where it’s at. They even had it on Sunday. 4 – 7 pm every damn day. I had 2 deliciously fancy cocktails that just made me flutter with delight. Maybe it’s because they were cute and purple and yummy and sometimes you just need a cute-​ass drink. Aviation was the purple one. If you like gin cocktails, you’ll like this one. Perfectly made. The Moscow Mule was as good as I’d expect, but not as fun as the cute purple one.
Now, I know there are plenty of awesome cocktail bars in Austin, but I think what sets Whisler’s apart is the space and atmosphere. The building is historic and the bar inside takes advantage of this, really highlighting the building. They have an outside bar and plenty of patio space (very important) to enjoy your cocktails.
Thai-​Kun is also on their property and you are so far east you can actually park. That all adds up to 5 stars to me. Check it out on a Sunday afternoon and you’ll be happy you did.

I like Whislers. Happy hour cocktails are very reasonably priced and quite tasty. It has lots of outdoor seating (great for most of the year, awful for summer) and an amazing food truck onsite. Bartenders are generally friendly and helpful.
It’s location makes it a great spot for starting (or ending) a night on E. 6^th.

So this bar would receive a much higher rating if it weren’t for the truly unpleasant experiences I have had with the bar staff 2 out of 3 times that I’ve visited. The place is nice, has a great patio and the Thai-​Kun food truck out back. I just have a hard time with a place that treats you so rudely by default.
To be specific, this last time that my husband and I went in it was happy hour and we were meeting friends. So to set the stage, it’s early, it’s empty, we’re totally sober, and in a good mood. After standing at the bar for a little bit without any acknowledgement, my husband politely asks the bartender if we could order a couple of drinks. We were starting the conversation, and hoping to just get some drinks on deck. He was clearly helping some ladies, but was moving like molasses and didn’t even give us eye contact or a nod, or anything. Everything about how my husband addressed the bartender was friendly and lighthearted. Apparently my husband speaking to him before he was ready really chapped this guy’s hide, and he condescendingly snapped at us that he was in the process of «making, like, 7 drinks right now. So you’ll have to wait your turn just like everyone else.»
We opted not to get a drink at all and meet our friends out back. We had some food, but decided to buy drinks from establishments that don’t treat us like crap. We then got to watch our friends wait at LEAST 25 – 30 minutes to get the margaritas they ordered at the bar before we even showed up. I’ll reiterate that this place was not crowded — it was about 5:30pm and there were maybe 8 people in the bar when we arrived, perhaps 4 or 5 outside. 25 – 30 minutes. They had to go to the bar twice before their drinks were done. They got their food (that they ordered after they ordered their drinks) and were halfway done with it when they got their margaritas.
There’s a lot of things I can understand that wouldn’t cause me to write a poor review. If he got busy and was stressed, that sucks. If he didn’t have help and ended up getting a ton of drink orders at once, that sucks. If he were dealing with rude, drunk people, that sucks. But we were nice, and he was an ass to us. And this is not the first time it’s happened – on a previous visit, this same bartender was rude and snarky to me before. That same visit, the outdoor bartender, a different guy, also had a super bad attitude, so I don’t think my impression of this place is based on that one unhappy dude.
So I’m glad people think this bar is cool, and maybe there are other bartenders that I just haven’t encountered that are perfectly pleasant. As a slight disclaimer, I have to say that in none of these situations were my husband or I rude to the staff. We are super easy going, and have been very pleasant in these situations. I feel like if there was a chance that we had come across as short or demanding I would not be so inclined to write this review.
Plain and simple, they’re just not nice here! If you don’t care about that, have at it. Good drinks and it’s a great «place to be seen» if you’re into that sort of a thing. But we’ll choose a bar that doesn’t make us feel like crap when we order a drink. Every time.
I wish it was still Rabbit’s.

This is a great cocktail bar in East Austin. I was there recently for their crawfish boil which was great. The food was good as were the drinks. The servers are great. I love the atmosphere and the drinks. The crowd is usually pretty cool. They have a great outdoor patio. Overall, I think it is a good place for a drink.

This is a cool bar. Lots of ambiance inside (kind of like if you combined the Alamo, a brothel, and a saloon), nice outdoor patio, east side king’s Thai-​Kun food truck out back, and the Mezcal tasting room up above.
They have killer craft cocktails (in the $ 10 – 12 range) and the bar tenders were nice before they got too busy to talk. All of us loved our cocktails — I got the Josephine Baker (see attached photos). Just try them all!
We loved going up to the Mezcal tasting room — it is tiny so get there early before it fills up. It opens at 8pm usually. I never knew Mezcal had such variety or that I would enjoy sipping it but I did!
At night it is pretty dark, especially in the Mezcal bar — a nice romantic atmosphere and good date night spot.
Looking forward to going back!

I came with locals. Both the top and bottom floors were crazy packed though, so ordering was a struggle. I tried their Fallen Leaf and liked it. They use fresh squeezed juices.

Ohh I can’t believe I haven’t reviewed this place yet! My wife and I have had the pleasure of visiting this beautiful bar on three occasions now. I have yet to be disappointed. They have what is still my favorite old fashioned in town. The space is stunning and as the sun goes down, the ambiance is as good as it gets. Snag yourself a seat at the bar if you want to guarantee faster service.
The only issue is that service can get backed up until they activate the second bar. Cocktails of the quality they produce take some time to craft. The only way to improve this bar would be to have a small area to the side (even a booth set up in the courtyard) slinging strictly beer. No need to distract the talented bartenders from making masterful cocktails with asking them to pop open a cold one.

Probably some of the best cocktails I’ve had in a while, The milkmans something was amazing! Cant go wrong with the Old Fashioned. I didn’t get a chance to try the Foodtruck outside but it looked delicious. The bartender was so attentive and so nice (i forgot his name but he lent me his lighter) I love going to places where they not only make amazing cocktails but are also very friendly and very welcoming. Thank you Whisler’s will be back!
Also… The have a Mezcal bar unpstairs… too many drinks in by the time they opened but will def try it next time.

Time for a review update! Whisler’s is one of my favorite bars and totally as good as it gets anywhere! If I am downtown I usually always end up here somehow. The drinks are amazing! The menu does change out from time to time and the bartenders are always coming up with new inventive creations. I also love that they have one of my favorite food trailers in the whole town on their patio and luckily their cocktails pair perfectly with Thai food! The tiger tears cocktail is one of my favorites!
The place is awesome! I will be back as it is my current go to spot.