#69: The Rooftop

The Bar

The Rooftop. 403 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 4/8/17 @ 12:30am.

The Drink

Unicorn cum. Grenadine, sweet and sour, Sprite. $6.

I used to go to a lot of concerts, before I got old and decided to save the rare occasions when I crawl out of my home to go drink next to college students and out of towners. Since I normally went to see smaller local bands, usually the concert bills would have even smaller and more local bands underneath the headliner. If you've ever been to local scene shows, you know that at least one of those opening acts is nearly guaranteed to have a name that's much better than their music, and so for a long time I had a sort of joking theory about the inverse relationship between a band's name and how good they were, until I found some counterexamples who were actually good. I mention this only because this recommended shot has a mildly funny name, but was one of the worst shots I've had so far. It's weird, too, because individually there's nothing wrong with any of the ingredients, yet collectively they tasted awful, without any of the pomegranate flavor that grenadine is supposed to provide. $6 isn't much for a shot on Sixth, but for an all-mixers shot it was still a big disappointment. Sometimes a comically-named drink can surprise you, other times it's just a ruse played on the unwary, as bad as it sounds.

The Crew

Karen, Cecilia, Travis, Aaron.

Notes

"Rooftop" is kind of a misnomer, since nowhere in this bar do you get to stand on the building's roof. You do have to go up some stairs to get to the bar, but it's not called "Stairstop" or "The Landing", so fans of truth in advertising be warned. Once you're up the stairs and into the parlor room of this house of lies, a pair of poles greet you (maybe not literally). On the Good Idea - Bad Idea spectrum, I think dancing poles are firmly on the Good Idea end: when drunk girls decide to ride the pole, it's a good time for everyone else no matter what happens. Thoughtfully, they even have one of those little troughs of beer on ice right near the poles, so you can buy some expensive Coors Light bottles and watch some light entertainment before hitting up the main dancefloor. Inside the big room is the actual bar, with a modestly-sized open floor lined at the edges with a DJ and some drink railings. You could call it cozy, or you could call it cramped, but either way we didn't call it home for very long, departing immediately after we finished our round.