#102: Hotel Vegas

The Bar

Hotel Vegas. 1502 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 7/29/17 @ 7pm.

The Drink

Lone Star. $3.

Another refreshing Lone Star! Apparently this bar was the top-selling Lone Star vendor on all of Sixth Street for 2016, and they even have a plaque to that effect affixed to the wall behind the bar that was bestowed by the brewery itself. I can't find any statistics on Lone Star sales in Austin, let alone on Sixth Street specifically, but knowing the local love for Lone Star, that's an impressive feat. I wonder how you would do the Fermi problem for this:

• Hotel Vegas' sales = (Total sales) / (Austin's share of total sales) / (Sixth Street's share of Austin) / (Hotel Vegas' share of Sixth Street)

As with all math involving alcohol, this problem would best be tackled after about three beers, which is enough to start wondering about numbers like this, but not so many as to get belligerent when you realize that you can't even guess at the relevant quantities involved. The third Lone Star is known as the "mathematician's Lone Star" for precisely this reason, and as it happens, this was the third Lone Star I was recommended on this quest. I leave the solution as an exercise for the reader.

The Crew

Rome, Aaron, Wolf, Anthony (not pictured).

Notes

I've seen a lot of great shows at Hotel Vegas. Like I've mentioned, it's the sister bar to the Volstead, and it focuses more on live music as opposed to being "just" a bar. The stage is centered in the room when you walk in, so that it gets really really loud during each band's set. Of course, if for some reason live music isn't your thing yet you happen to be at the bar anyway, you could escape to the outdoor patio... except that sometimes there's bands playing there too! At least outside you can sit down on their park benches, under tents that protect you from the burning sun, which is an amenity that not all bars remember to provide. It might not matter during the winter, but during the appalling Texas summer there's not much worse than feeling yourself cook like an egg under the pitiless gaze of our greatest nemesis. One feature of Hotel Vegas that I can't believe I never noticed was the apartments on top. According to the bartender they used to be the rooms of a brothel, which is a fun historical tidbit. Those days are sadly long gone, thanks to the grim march of gentrification (and the onset of the age of Tinder), but as colorful as the epoch of the no-tell motel must have been, I'm glad that it's become Hotel Vegas.