Austin, Texas: Restaurants to Check Out if You Only Have 24 Hours

This adventure is exactly as the title describes. I spent 24 hours in Austin, Texas. Was that the original plan? Nope. Did life happen which caused the trip to be cut short? Yep. Here’s a story of an adventure anticipated alongside an adventure I never would have expected.

Girls Trip 2025

The city? Austin, Texas. The purpose? To celebrate a birthday, but do you really need any other reason? The itinerary, and the original flights, were booked from Thursday to Sunday with adventures scheduled throughout the weekend. Now, clearly from the title of this post, you can see that Thursday to Sunday doesn’t equal out to 24 hours. So, I’ll share what I was able to experience in that short time. Spoiler, it mostly involves food.

Thursday: Day 1

Flight from Oregon to Texas. Nothing special there. Flights were on time, I didn’t sleep a wink, and got into Texas earlier than anticipated. Got picked up by friends I was meeting and planning on spending the weekend with and headed to the AirBnB.

The backpack and duffle bag were set on the bed. We explored the house until it was time to get ready to go to dinner at Taquero Mucho. I am the type of person to look up the menu prior to going to a new (to me) restaurant. This way, I have an idea of what I might order. If you haven’t, I suggest you check out the website linked. This setting chose a color and leaned into it. Hard. That color? Pink. The menus were pink, they had heart balloons on the ceiling, even the lighting inside was all, you guessed it, pink. Not only that but the tortillas were made pink. I had never been bathed in so much of one color in my life. The food itself? Pretty good. The tacos were delicious. I even had to take one back with me since I was too full to finish that and the salsa appetizer samplers we bought.

Back to the AirBnB where we decompressed for the night and played trivia on the TV.

Friday: Day 1.5

Lunch at Elizabeth Street Cafe. Yes, you read that correctly. Lunch. The intention was brunch but we had reservations on Friday and apparently there are only a handful of locations in the area that offer brunch on a weekday.

Tip: plan ahead if you are wanting brunch.

Everywhere else we looked up, Saturday and Sunday only. We were the first ones in right at 11 am when they opened and the environment was calm and welcoming. Ordered some delicious Vietnamese iced coffee and a sandwich.

This is where the itinerary for my takes a turn from the others in the group. During lunch, I had received a text from my significant other that he was experiencing some pain. Enough pain and discomfort that caused him to go to Urgent Care. Well, Urgent Care turned into a trip to the ER. Once I received that call that he was going to the ER, I knew my time in Texas had come to an end. I needed to figure out how to get on a flight as quickly as possible. I won’t share exactly what was going on for him but will say that he underwent a pretty common procedure and recovered nicely. Was there stress, sweat, and a lot of crying to strangers between that phone call and actually arriving back home? You bet.

Now, my time was cut short, as mentioned. But that doesn’t mean I won’t share with you the itinerary for the rest of the trip.

• Wanderlust Wine Cave
• Dinner at Caroline’s
• Tattoos at Lucky Leopard Tattoo
• Dinner at Brutto

Overall Thoughts

I have learned my lesson in purchasing budget flights. I had originally purchased the cheapest flight available. That meant there were no alterations to the original flight. Which means, the flight that I had already purchased to fly back to Oregon on Sunday? Useless. I had to purchase a whole separate ticket to get back. There was no chance I wasn’t going to do that. The idea of someone I love being in the ER while I was in a completely different state, didn’t sit well with me. Plus, I had the ability to get back so of course I purchased the second ticket.

I wouldn’t go to Taquero Mucho again. Nothing wrong with the food, as I mentioned, the tacos were delicious. Just simply wasn’t my vibe. But if you do decide to go, I suggest visiting when it’s darker. You can take photos around the patio area that they have set up.

If you are planning a brunch outing, confirm it’s available on your chosen day. I wasn’t anticipating such a popular destination city to have so few available options.