One of Austin’s Oldest Dive Bars Seeks Historic Zoning at Deep Eddy Cabaret

Image: Deep Eddy Cabaret / Facebook

Deep Eddy Cabaret at 2315 Lake Austin Boulevard offers beer even colder than its namesake spring-fed swimming pool one block south. According to historic nonprofit Preservation Austin, at 72 years old and counting the dive is the city’s oldest neighborhood bar, and these days its presence is a comforting counterargument to the increasingly posh reputation of its surrounding neighborhood. But not all old dives bother to make their obvious importance in local history official on paper, so we’re thrilled to see Deep Eddy Cabaret owner Will Bridges kicking off the application process for historic zoning at the bar, with the city’s Historic Landmark Commission voting unanimously in favor of the designation at its meeting earlier this week. 

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The limestone and brick building at this site originally opened around 1915 as a neighborhood grocery store and bait shop built by the Johnson family, the first landowners in the Deep Eddy region along the Colorado River who also developed the bathing beach that would eventually become Deep Eddy Pool.

A view of the bar in the 1970s. Image: Deep Eddy Cabaret / Facebook

Austinite Raymond Hickman purchased the property in 1951, converting the store into a beer bar known as Deep Eddy Cabaret. Despite a change in ownership from the Hickman family in 2014, very little has changed at the watering hole besides the addition of a liquor license and a credit card reader. The 2017 opening of Pool Burger, a tiki-themed burger bar in a small separate space at the rear of the building, is the only significant modification to the site in decades.

When the grocery store was first established ca. 1915, it initially served as a small grocery store and bait shop for those wanting to fish nearby along the river or grab a beer after a swim at the Deep Eddy Bathing Beach, and later the Deep Eddy Pool. As the Deep Eddy Grocery and Market, the business catered to recreationalists enjoying swimming, fishing, or boating. In 1917, Richard Bayer advertised their “Deep Eddy Picnic” offering customers lunch at the store, so they didn’t need to bring their own while enjoying the adjacent amenities. When it became the Deep Eddy Café in the 1950s, and later the Deep Eddy Cabaret, the business served as both a favorite local hangout and tourist destination. [It has appeared] in numerous newspapers and magazines, including the Austin American Statesman, Austin Chronicle, and Bon Appetit and in several books, including Bucket List Bars and Come Here Often? In 1981, then-manager Lynn Lively noted that customers included “an eclectic mix of people: frat rats, carpenters, lawyers, state workers,” and was a longtime favorite haunt of Texas politician Bob Bullock.

— Historic Landmark Application, Deep Eddy Cabaret

Although members of the Historic Landmark Commission noted that the building’s historic merit was found less in its architecture than its cultural significance over the years, considering its lack of major exterior alterations over the years the structure is still a good example of the small family-owned neighborhood businesses that are increasingly rare in the modern Austin. With the HLC’s unanimous approval of the site’s historic zoning, the case will now head for the Planning Commission and finally a City Council vote, but that’s all just process, man — needless to say, we don’t see anything getting in the way of this legendary bar’s official recognition.