Downtown Austin Restaurants Are Offering Food and Drink Specials for Free Music Festival

Austin restaurant group is opening a new Aspen restaurant

Austin-based hospitality group New Waterloo is opening another new restaurant in Aspen, Colorado. Hai Si is an izakaya with Japanese and Spanish cuisine leanings led by Otoko executive chef Yoshi Okai with Aspen-based group Infinite Hospitality. It’ll be found at 308 East Hopkins starting sometime in the winter of 2025. It’ll have a sushi bar, food menu with hot and cold dishes, a full bar, as well as wine and sake. The team actually previewed dishes at the Aspen Food and Wine Festival in June. Infinite oversees New Waterloo’s expansion of Thai restaurant Sway in Aspen (Hai Si will actually share the same address as it) as well as meat and cheese shop and restaurant Meat & Cheese.

Vietnamese restaurant reopening

North Austin Vietnamese restaurant Pho Van reopened this month, as reported by Community Impact. The restaurant had been closed for four months because a car crashed into the space in late February, so it had to undergo reconstruction.

Milkshake-dipped French fries in popsicle form

Austin-based frozen popsicle brand GoodPop teamed up with frozen potato food brand Ore-Ida on a fudge-vanilla-French fry-flavored popsicle, a play on the whole idea of dipping the fried potato sticks into milkshakes. The Fudge n’ Vanilla French Fry Pop is made with vanilla oat milk that is covered in a chocolate fudge shell that has pits of crispy potatoes. It’s available nationally in stores.

Tracking Austin food events

Austin chef Deepa Shridhar’s next biryani pop-up is happening this week with Barton Springs modern Chinese restaurant Zoé Tong’s barbecue truck Sí Baby-Q’s chef Simone Tong and pitmaster Jonathan Lagos. The South Indian-Texan-Asian menu’s plates include biryani with smoked marinated chicken or brisket; smoked cauliflower with cilantro rice; the Dan Dan Pandi Curry Frito Pie, an iteration of the food truck’s Frito pie with wild boar-based coorg pandi curry, and the pandan-saffron soft serve made with vegan oat milk Oatly. There’s also a take on the classic gin and tonic cocktail, the Tamarind Drumstick. Preorders can be placed online, and there will be room for some walk-in orders every day. A la carte smoked items — brisket, sausage, lamb shoulder, spare ribs, and paneer — can only be ordered in person. It takes place Thursday, July 18 and Friday, July 19 from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, July 20 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and again from 5 to 8 p.m. and then from Sunday, July 21 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

New York bar Mother’s Ruin’s Austin expansion is going to host a cocktail pop-up ahead of its impending opening this summer. It’ll take place at East Austin bar Half Moon (aka the back patio of Murray’s Tavern) on Thursday, July 18 from 8 to 11 p.m. There will be tequila drinks, an ice luge, and a DJ.