Denver is better than Austin. To us, of course.
Denver people love Austin, even if they have never been. And they should, the two cities are very similar. “Stuff”-wise, we have all the same stuff that’s in every city: Target, Costco, Aveda Institute (though I couldn’t go to the one in Austin and the one here is close/convenient)
Things that are from one or the other:
Lots of Austin (or Texas) things are in Denver.
- Alamo Drafthouse
- (and pre-Pandemic) Master Pancake Theater, which is now on Twitch and has a very entertaining chat, for a completely different experience! #FuckGregAbbott
- Hopdoddy Burgers
- Phởnatic – Vietnamese fast casual restaurant
- Crú Wine Bar
- Eddie V’s Prime Seafood
- Freebirds
- Waterloo Icehouse
- Torchy’s Tacos
- Square Cow Moovers (That’s two o’s in moovers!)
- Lustre Pearl (and the one in Denver is SOOOOO nice!)
- iFly
- Star Bar
- Tiff’s Treats (We like it so much that we got a “membership”!)
- Black Swan Yoga
- Chuy’s
- Whole Foods, of course
- “Eeeeewchi”–a “dining experience” (who shall not be named on our blog) where you’ll drop $300+ per person to barely eat dinner. [We haven’t been to Soto, but have it on two very good authorities that it’s the best sushi in the Austin area.]
- Yeti
- Colorado Springs has a Rudy’s
- The north side of Denver has a you-know-the-one beaver store (But they treat their employees like garbage and donate to trash politicians, so I’m hoping it’s not the easiest for us to use since our RV that lives up there. I really don’t want that guilt.) (based in Lake Jackson)
- Mattress Firm (based in Houston)
- Saltgrass Steakhouse (based in Houston)
- Perry’s Steakhouse (based in Houston)
- Pappasito’s, Pappadeaux, (based in Houston)
- Jason’s Deli (based in Beaumont)
- Maggiano’s Little Italy (based in Houston)
- Fuzzy’s Tacos (based in Fort Worth)
- Pei Wei (based in Irving)
- Bar Louie (based in Addison) (and wow is the one near us terrible!)
- Twin Peaks (based in Dallas)
- Top Golf (based in Dallas)
- Dickey’s Barbecue Pit (based in Dallas)
- Chili’s (based in Dallas)
- Schlotzsky’s (originally from Austin, but now based in Atlanta)
There are also quite a few Denver-based businesses that have locations (or products) in Austin (or nationally/globally).
- Savory Spice Shop
- Macaroni Grill
- Slack – virtual, but based in Denver
- 5280 Burger Bar
- Infinite Monkey Theorem
- Snooze
- Quizno’s
- Einstein Bros. Bagels
- Ball Corporation
- Punch Bowl Social
- Smashburger
- Oskar Blues
- Tuff Shed
- Kong dog toys
- Floyd’s 99 Barbershop
- Denver Mattress / Furniture Row
- DaVita (dialysis centers)
- Red Robin (but who TF cares???)
- G33ks Who effin’ Dr!nk – ew!
- Jolly Rancher candy – founded in Golden, CO (purchased by Hershey in 1996)
We miss
- HEB (so much!!!)
- Tacodeli (also so much!!!)
- Queso – almost no one here serves it
our mugs at The Local and other favorite bars, the owner moved away- 24-hour places for late-night snacking
beer and wine in the grocery store; we have that nowbig, loud, Texas thunderstorms; turns out, we sometimes get those, too- Pita Fusion. Pita Pit just isn’t the same.
- Cover 2/3 “bloody & bubbles bar” for Bloody Mary drinks and Mimosas/similar — soooo good
- Whataburger (but one just opened in Colorado Springs) – whata-ever, they sold out anyway
- Half Price Books
- bluebonnets (and yellow roses being a thing), other wildflowers, mountain laurel, but we love the summer wildflowers in Colorado, many of which are blue/purple. We get bluebonnets, just not huge fields of them. And Columbines are quite beautiful, too.
- Rainey Street (but we miss old Rainey) and 6th Street to some degree
- I miss the wineries, but we didn’t go very often, and we have a ton up here, too
- Austin also has the LBJ Presidential Library and the The Bullock Texas State History Museum, both of which are fantabulous; we haven’t yet been to many of the museums, here, but we have a lot.
We don’t miss
- The Redneckery® a.k.a. Texas’ politics.
#FuckGregAbbot #FuckTedCruz #FuckDanPatrick #FuckGQP #FuckSexismAndPatriarchyAndRacism
If you are still a GOP voter at this point, you should be very ashamed. If you have any humanity about you, you should have been embarrassed to the liberal side when the deranged mango was nominated. And if you are still GOP, then admit your bigotry/racism/sexism, and GTF off our blog. You know who we are….and your Jesus knows what a bigot you are! - Live music. Yes, it’s an unpopular opinion. When live music is everywhere–in the neighborhood pub in a suburb, at the airport, in every dinky little bar in three counties–you are exposed to a lot of bad live music. There are a lot of good musicians in Austin, but there are a lot more wannabes. And, because they are “musicians” who think turning it up to 11 makes it better, they are all deaf, so it’s ear-splitting and migraine-inducing everywhere you go.
It’s not just live music, either. We got scolded one time for covering a speaker with a jacket when we were the only group in the room! We were at one table during the dinner hour and couldn’t talk.
We have never (formally) been to SXSW Music, ACL, or any other Austin music festival. Even at Oktoberfest/similar events, you’ll find us way out on the edge away from the noise. To us, a good DJ knows to keep the volume low enough for everyone to hear each other. We are there to socialize. If we want a concert experience, we’ll go to a concert. Guess what we never do? - Cedar gotdayum Fever!
- One hundred degrees for one hundred days a year, every year.
- humidity
- Grackles
- Sunday/blue laws
- And I’d like to miss: the emergency alerts from WilCo,
but they don’t have an Unsubscribe or Stop feature. I get they don’t want people to abuse it, but I no longer need to know if there is a freeze warning in Georgetown, TX.I marked them as spam. Serves them right. Then, I got one more in 2024 (!!!). I finally found the extremely convoluted way to take my data out of their system. What a shitty design.
Sames
Several things about the two cities are the same.
- State capitol
- major university, smaller ones too, and all of that related sports/culture
- Major League Soccer
- State Supreme Court
- lots of breweries – Denver has more in the city, Austin’s tend to be more rural
- blue city
- tech district
- large urban park
- botanical gardens
- super dog-friendly city – Denver has more dogs than children! wooo hooo!
- community acupuncture
- WordPress meetups (and boy howdy did Denver knock this out of the park with online meetups that are better than live ones!)
- large convention center
- weed is common (and pretty safe, even in Austin if you are rich enough and white enough)
- homeless problems (and they are the same problems; Austin was handling this a tiny bit better, but Denver’s new mayor has made a huge impact)
- car washes are still hard to find, especially if you specifically want either a DIY/wand or a drive-through; they all have the monthly rate for unlimited washes (and up here, we might end up needing that)
- Buda. Yep, just north of Denver is a little town named Buda.
Gains
Denver metro feels more like a real city than Austin metro ever did…and for darn good reason. The Denver city limits is pretty small, but the metro area is quite a bit larger. It’s also laid out in a grid instead of along a waterfront, so it’s denser.
city limits | metro area | |
Austin | 950,807 | 2,227,083 (and losing 30K per year to Denver) |
Denver | 705,576 | 2,932,415 (and gaining 30K per year from Austin) |
Denver also has some pretty big things that Austin does not.
- legal weed (an entire industry that Texas mostly lacks)
- federal/bankruptcy court (the one for Texas is in Houston)
- nearly every restaurant has a full bar
- a US Mint
- a Federal Reserve (Texas has one in Dallas)
- Major League Baseball – the Rockies
- NBA Basketball – the Nuggets
- NHL Hockey – the Avalanche
- NFL Football – the Broncos
- a real zoo (and another GREAT zoo in Colorado Springs, a must-do if you are there)
- Red Rocks Amphitheatre
(think of the one in Palo Duro Canyon, but with an audience of 9,545) - large arts districts
- vibrant theater district
- Denver business district is the “Wall Street of the West”
- Five Points neighborhood is the “Harlem of the West”
- more museums and galleries
- highly-customizable traffic alerts for all major highways and 511 for that same info
- real seasons – they are still a little jonkady™, but far more predictable
- Nature views: summer wild flowers, fall leaves, and snow-capped mountains
- blue state
- liquor stores open on Sundays
- Magpies! – wow are they fun to watch!
Not everything is bigger (or better) in Texas.