Dead Rabbit opens Austin bar

Award-winning bar The Dead Rabbit has opened its second site in Texas instead of New Orleans, with plans to expand into Washington DC and Boston next year.

The new site opened today (4 July) on Sixth Street in downtown Austin.

The opening of Dead Rabbit Austin is the first of multiple expansions in the US for the Irish-themed cocktail pub in the coming years. It will be followed by a Washington DC venue and a Boston location in 2025.

A site in New Orleans was planned to be the second opening for The Dead Rabbit, however co-founder Jack McGarry confirmed that it “failed to materialise due to a confluence of challenges”.

Taking to Instagram on 19 June, he said: “At the store level, we require operational footprints ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 square feet to accommodate our extensive back-of-house requirements and sufficient front-of-house spaces essential for revenue generation. After the New Orleans experience, our focus has shifted exclusively to second-generation stores to mitigate capital intensity or first-generation locations with adequate provisions for tenant improvements.”

The Austin site will be led by McGarry, director of operations Laura Torres and beverage director Aidan Bowie.

Housed in a 5,000-square-foot space, The Dead Rabbit Austin offers 50 bar and counter seats, 100 table seats, and plenty of standing room.

The drinks list will include the original site’s beloved Irish Coffee, Guinness and cocktails including Lost in Translation, Daily Rind and First & Formosa.

Lost in Translation combines Lost Irish whiskey, Toki whisky, Midori, matcha, egg white and lemon. Meanwhile, the Daily Rind blends cantaloupe melon-infused Fords Gin, vermouth, Manzanilla Sherry, verjus blanc and black pepper.

The food menu will focus on Irish pub food, incorporating Texas meats, cheeses, and produce from purveyors including New World Bakery, Hill Country Dairies, and Hardies.

The bar will be adjacent to the all-day Neighbourhood Café, a 50-seat site that marks the first expansion outside of Belfast for the brunch venue.

The centrepiece of Dead Rabbit Austin is the music-focused ‘That’s Deadly’ programme, led by music director Liam Craig, alongside general manager Mark Yawn. The team will bring together modern Irish music playlists and performances from Irish artists, as well as comedians and storytellers.

‘Rewrite the standard for pubs’

“Our lofty, but attainable, mission with The Dead Rabbit is to rewrite the standard for pubs internationally, reframing Irish culture and banishing stereotypes along the way,” said McGarry.

“Austin is a city known for its vibrant social and music scene. One could draw parallels between the warm and boisterous Texas hospitality and traditional Irish pub culture, which values the oft-forgotten ‘third place’ mentality, that weaves together a rich social fabric into a welcoming space that’s greater than the sum of its parts.”

The Dead Rabbit Austin will be open daily from 11am to 2am.

The New York venue was among one of the first bars to receive a pin in The Pinnacle Guide in 2024, a Michelin-style system for bars globally.

In 2022, The Dead Rabbit’s co-founder, Sean Muldoon, departed the acclaimed New York bar to open a new Irish-themed venue in South Carolina, US.

Muldoon revealed in an Instagram post last month that Hazel and Apple’s opening in the last quarter of 2023 had been delayed by “unforeseen roadblocks”. He said the original design of the bar was “overly ambitious and presented numerous architectural challenges”, with the need for new permits to be filed before construction begins.