#238: Happy Bar

The Bar

Happy Bar. 701 W Sixth St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 8/15/2026 @ 7pm.

The Drink

She's From Texas. Western Sons cucumber vodka, Deep Eddy lemon vodka, lemon juice, simple syrup, Sprite, cucumber, lime, Tajín. $14.

Good gracious, that glass is curvaceous. Sorry, wrong song. Named after the hook from Ella Langley's megahit song of the summer Choosin' Texas, this cocktail is essentially a complicated vodka soda - a delicious one, thanks to the cucumber and my beloved Deep Eddy lemon vodka, the best vodka - served in an amusing custom glass. Forget settling for a copper mug like a Moscow Mule, why not make your drink stand out by serving it in a fertility idol? Its resemblance to a religious icon like the famous Venus of Willendorf statues prompted some joking discussion on what if us patrons were at a post-apocalyptic Fallout-type bar and these glasses were used as chalices to serve whatever the future equivalent of Eucharist sacramental wine would be, or what if Indiana Jones had picked this as the Holy Grail in The Last Crusade, etc. Like all good riff sessions, maybe you had to be there; plenty of folks would just see them as mildly tacky/tasteless/touristy novelty items, but they made for a fun 5 minute conversation piece, and that's more than you can ask for from most cocktail glasses. Strongly recommended if you own a replica of the leg lamp from A Christmas Story.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

Happy Bar had only been open for a few weeks when I visited. The bartender was not sure exactly what happened to Space Fox, the previous occupant of this building, and did not have much to say about the ownership either, so your guess is as good as mine about what caused this transition; I am not even sure it is still owned by Gold Fox Hospitality like its predecessors Space Fox and WTF were. The layout is basically the same as Space Fox, with the primary difference in décor being a determined application of the smiling happy face motif all over the place. Something that did strike me on this visit is that while having the bar facing away from the street is good for people walking by, who can easily see the screens and the patrons, we inside the bar have to turn around in case anything notable comes along our way. It was mainly just bachelorette party crawlers, which prompted some good discussion between myself and my barstool neighbors, who were fairly new to town, about the differences between how tourists and locals view Sixth Street, since there is a well-known tradeoff between bars whose strategy is to churn through price-insensitive visitors who will never return and bars which depend on repeat patronage from price-conscious locals. The conversation was good enough that I sat drinking with them for four hours, and eventually invited them along to the Driskill, the next stop of the night, and the rare example of a bar that can cater to both visitors and locals at the same time without compromising on quality.