East Cesar Chavez

Bounded the south by Lady Bird Lake and Interstate 35 to the west, the East Cesar Chavez neighborhood of Austin is close to downtown and the entertainment district of 6th Street. It is a diverse neighborhood with many homes from the turn of the century, middle of the 20th Century, and modern style homes available for people looking for a more affordable part of Austin to live in. Some of the homes in the northern part of the neighborhood sell for a bit over $100,000, but the low price also means that you may have to deal with some extra traffic and noise from the nearby 6th Street entertainment district.

The area is seeing a rebirth of sorts with lots of new businesses moving into the area. There are a number of excellent private schools in the area and it is served by the Austin Independent School District. It's easy to get around to any part of the city thanks to the Capitol Metro bus and rail lines. If you love Mexican food, this is the place to be as there are a number of excellent restaurants along East 1st Street. There are also excellent choices in seafood and you're only a hop, skip, and jump away from the great 6th Street Entertainment district.

The people are friendly and diverse, and the neighborhood manages to encompass everything from fantastic nightlife to natural tranquility and beauty. In particular, as you make your way south toward Town Lake, it becomes more quiet and residential; as you make your way north toward 6th Street, the atmosphere gets more highly charged, with a huge array of food, drink, and entertainment options.

A lot like East Central, the more residential areas of the neighborhood are currently seeing the beginnings of gentrification. Homes that have changed hands recently are being updated, and groceries and coffee shops are finding purchase in little enclaves all over. Right now, hipsters and artists are living side-by-side with older, established homeowners and retirees, and the area is live-and-let-live and racially diverse.

One of my favorite relaxing things to do is head to Town Lake to walk or even just sit and look out at the skyline and the traffic that seems so far removed from that particularly quiet and often completely empty part of the neighborhood. The view is especially grand at night, when the lights from the lake houses to the south are reflected in the water.

Bus lines are plentiful around here as well, parking is ample, and traffic is light. It's also reasonably easy to navigate on foot. All in all, if the food and nightlife options of Downtown appeal to you, but the trendier--and costlier--elements do not, East Cesar Chavez is the perfect middle ground.

This is one of my favorite neighborhoods in Austin. It’s extremely close to the center of Austin, but since it’s east of I-35, it remains set apart from the commercial feel and overwhelming college bar scene of downtown.

E 6th street is the main drag of this neighborhood. My favorite places are the food trailer park just east of San Marcos (picnic tables surrounded by colorful food trucks that serve cheap & delicious food), shabby chic Rio Rita’s for their ice coffee and their back patio, and WriteByNight (a non-profit creative writing center & library). There are lots of great bars, shops, and hair salons on this street. I also really like Progress Coffee down on 5th and San Marcos.

Even better, are the southernmost parts of this neighborhood. There are quiet residential streets lined with colorful, tiny houses that have a lot of character (crazy gardens & decorations). It seems like everyone in the neighborhood says hello to me as I ride by on my bike. It’s a very friendly and welcoming atmosphere in that regard. There are a lot of Mexican families that live here, and there are lots of houses that look like they’re occupied by artists, judging by the intentional design of the houses’ exterior.

There is a huge community garden in this neighborhood down near Festival Beach. And down by the Festival Beach waterfront, there are lots of shady picnic areas and a hiking/biking trail that runs along the river. A couple times a month, the Austin Social Ride convenes down here, which means that hundreds of cyclists meet up and ride in a huge pack across the city—ringing their bells and waving to pedestrians.

If you want to live in a friendly, colorful neighborhood close to the center of town—live here!

This is a great place to go for that authentic old school Austin nightlife experience without all of the crowds and drunk frat guys hitting on you all night. The hipster vibe is thick at the Yellow Jacket Social Club, but it’s totally worth it for their beet sandwich. The Liberty is a great cheap dive bar (which again, attracts hipsters like flypaper). It’s sort of nasty, and a few times I’ve found questionable gray moldy lumps in my mixed drinks, so I just stick to bottles now, thanks! It beats paying $10 cover to buy $16 martinis and schmooze with the orange-skinned skanks downtown. Anyway, on to the Gypsy Lounge. It’s a pretty interesting place, all red and draped with fabric, like some sort of Moroccan brothel, and then BAM—in walks the hoodied kid with black spikey hair and skinny jeans. Dude—are you following me? But the one place that the hipsters are sure not to be is Festival Beach Park at the very south of the neighborhood. It’s a quiet little strip of dirt along the edge of the river where the Austin Rowers go by every once in a while. It’s never crowded, so it’s the perfect place to go write in your moleskin journal.

Few tourists and out of ton visitors venture east of the interstate, which makes this neighborhood a favorite among locals. E 6th is filled with low maintenance music venues, colorful dive bars and more than enough mobile food trailers for the hungry on a budget. Each street light post and wooden fence is canvassed with flyer giving details about Austin happenings and every eatery spot has an outdoor patio from which customers and those passing by can exchange greetings. Wander further south from E. 5th through E. 2nd and you will come across dozens of modest homes with a few upscale condos dotting the background behind them, making the East Cesar Chavez neighborhood accessible to almost and level of income. Once on E. Cesar Chavez, the landscape is overwhelmed with artist studios, even cheaper dive bars with crooked wooden stages, and Mexican food markets. Between E. Cesar Chavez and the river has a healthy share of waterfront parks and public schools within the residential quadrants.

This neighborhood offers the best of both worlds for locals. Morning hours present a quiet charm, which is the perfect environment for grabbing a cup of coffee or having breakfast tacos under the trees. The afternoon hours are when the bicycle shops, hair salons and gallery/ artist spaces get into their full swing and the evening hours are ideal for those who want to live up the nightlife with fire poi, blues music and cheap drinks; without the buzz and annoyance of overly drunk out of town visitors found downtown. This small area of town has a diverse physical and cultural landscape that exhibits what Austin is about, but in a less pretentious manner.