#177: Velvet Taco

The Bar

Velvet Taco. 522 Congress Ave Suite 100, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 1/30/22 @ 7pm.

The Drink

Kickass margarita. Lunazul blanco tequila, orange liqueur, agave nectar, lime juice. $10.50.

A chain fast food taco joint is naturally not going to have an overflowing menu of drink choices, but sometimes a few good options are all you need to go with your chips and queso. Velvet Taco only offers a Paloma and Ranch Water in addition to this margarita, but it was solidly respectable: Lunazul is a good tequila, and I appreciated that they didn't cheap out with some off-brand margarita mix to go with it. I also appreciated that the bartender/cashier picked on the rocks instead of frozen, which as you are all already aware of is the superior way to drink just about any cocktail. This drink from an out-of-town Dallas chain almost certainly won't ever become as locally beloved as, say, a Trudy's Mexican martini, but it was my birthday, as it happens, and this drink at the first stop of the night brought back pleasant memories of drinking lots of margaritas at Taco Cabana (itself a San Antonio chain) on Sundays evenings with friends in college, and that's plenty good enough for me. 

The Crew

Aaron, Brent.

Notes

I did some mild panicking when I first learned that there had been a booze-serving Velvet Taco on Sixth Street for several years. I had been to the one at the Domain, but how had I missed this one on my initial crawl? But no, this outpost on Sixth Street arrived in 2019, so I was free to enjoy it at my own pace. Velvet Taco originated in Dallas in 2011 as a sort of rough equivalent to Torchy's, meaning more premium (some might say premium mediocre) tacos with offbeat ingredients, aimed at a slightly more upscale audience than your average Taco C. They've recently been sold to a private equity company, which is rarely a positive sign, so time will tell if their expansion through the double digits results in the same drop in reputation that Torchy's has suffered. Personally I have found their tacos just fine, particularly the chicken tikka masala and the Cuban, but today I wasn't there to eat, just to sample their drinks, so we sat there and discussed the woeful Chiefs-Bengals game from last night before departing for happier vibes.