Hi friends, Valhalla is closing. The Red River bar has about a month left after seventeen years, and it is the fifth room on that street to go this year. The date and the details are below, because if it was ever your place, this is the month to go.
Before that, an East Austin breakfast that both James Beard and Michelin have named, and a festival this weekend where you decide what you pay. There is a new section too, called Meet, where an Austin business answers my three questions, and a muralist whose longest wall runs along the Butler Trail.
One place to eat, one thing to do, and one thing to know, as always. Here is your weekend.
Eat, this week
East Austin · Tuesday to Sunday, 6am to 2pm · plates around $15
Joe’s Bakery & Coffee Shop has been on East Seventh Street since 1962, run by the Avila family the whole way. It is one of the few places in town that both the James Beard Foundation and Michelin have gone out of their way to name: an America’s Classics award in 2023, and a spot on the Michelin Guide’s 2025 Austin list with a single dollar sign next to it. Michelin’s own line on it is “no frills but all heart.”
Order the bacon and egg taco. The bacon is fried twice, and it is the thing Michelin’s inspectors singled out. The migas taco on the house flour tortilla and the barbacoa are the other two orders, and a concha from the bakery case is how you leave. Breakfast runs all day and lunch plates start at 10:30. There are no reservations, and on weekends you wait outside and get a text when your table is ready, so go early.
Do, this weekend
Rainey Street · Saturday and Sunday, September 26 and 27 · pay what you can
Art City Austin’s Fiesta has been running since 1950, which makes it the longest-running arts festival in the city, and this weekend it fills the Mexican American Cultural Center at the bottom of Rainey Street. More than forty Austin-area artists and makers sell their own work, there are food trucks and a beer garden, and the music runs all day. Cumbia lessons are Saturday at 5, Riders Against the Storm close Saturday night at 8, and Bidi Bidi Banda, the Selena tribute, plays Sunday at 5.
It is pay what you can at the gate, anywhere from nothing to $15, and anyone 16 and under gets in free. Saturday runs noon to 9 and Sunday noon to 6. Parking at the MACC is free for festival-goers but there is not much of it, so come early or come on the trail.
Know, this week
Valhalla, the bar and venue at 710 Red River, closes on October 26 after almost seventeen years. The building sold in August and the new owners used the termination clause in the lease. Co-owner Seth Levy was offered the building and could not afford it. A Gus’s Fried Chicken franchise is taking the space.
It is not the only one. Empire Control Room & Garage, Koriente, Feels So Good, and Marlow have all closed on Red River this year, and Levy told the Daily Texan it is “probably the darkest of times for Red River.” If Valhalla was ever your room, or the first stop of a Red River night, you have about a month. Levy has said he wants to see the regulars before it goes, and a few final show dates were still open for bands.
Meet, this week
Foster’s Art Installation hangs art for a living: gallery walls set just right, and a 235-pound mirror over a fireplace without damaging a thing. The owner ran an interior-design studio in Austin for about twelve years, hired Foster’s for clients along the way, and took the business over when its founder retired. The answer that stopped me was about restaurants: years of selling beer and wine taught them that great work is mostly the prep nobody sees, and hanging a wall turns out to be the same job.
Awesome Austinites
One person who makes something here, in his own words.
Photo by David Evanich.
Seth Prestwood, artist. He paints, sculpts, prints, and photographs, and he has done dozens of murals around the country. His first one in Austin went up in February on the Ann and Roy Butler Trail around Lady Bird Lake, and it is the longest he has ever painted. He also produces events for Future Front Texas, an arts nonprofit.
Asked what he would tell someone who moved here last week, he said this: “Don’t ever complain if and when we’re getting a lot of rain.”
Dish of the week
Cinful Sweets · Orange Juice with Almond Butter, Vegan Bonbon
This week’s dish is a vegan bonbon from Cinful Sweets, sent in by the shop. It started as a childhood breakfast: fresh-squeezed orange juice and toast with almond butter, the way the owner’s mom used to make it. Cinful Sweets is a chocolate shop on Burnet Road in North Austin, and it ships nationwide if the person you want to send one to lives somewhere else.
One more thing.
On Friday and Saturday at 8:30pm, the old Seaholm intake on Lady Bird Lake becomes a screen. WaterWork is a projection show on the building’s face, produced by Design Austin with The Trail Conservancy, and it is free to watch from Auditorium Shores or the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge. Get there early for a spot on land, or rent a kayak and watch it from the water.
If someone you know keeps asking where to go in Austin, forward this. One forward, and the Austin cheat-sheet is yours.
See you next Thursday.
P.S. If Joe’s has you in a breakfast mood, the restaurant directory has every Austin restaurant in one list, and you can filter it by cuisine and neighborhood.