The future of Austin bar Ego's
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A server at Ego's prepares the tables on Monday afternoon. Photo: Asher Price/Axios
Beloved karaoke bar Ego's will remain open through the end of the month before it's set to become part of a glossy South Congress redevelopment, the latest in a back-and-forth over the bar's future.
Why it matters: The 45-year-old windowless dive bar, home to cheap beer since 1979, has been a favorite come-one-come-all gathering spot — including for lawmakers, lobbyists and the journalists who cover them.
- "There was no room here for the narcissism of large differences," Texas Monthly reporter Ben Rowen observed last year about Ego's bipartisan karaoke.
What's happening: In a Monday update on Instagram, Ego's announced that the bar would tentatively remain open "at least through the end of the month."
- "We're gonna be real with you. It's not looking like Ego's is going to be open much longer," the bar had posted on Instagram over the weekend. "Right now we're taking it day by day while we wait to see if the landlord is willing to fix all of the pipes that keep collapsing, but it's not looking good since they plan on demoing the building at some point anyway and we're the only business left in that building."
Yes, but: The bar told Axios in an Instagram message Monday that it "will be part of the new development. They don't want us to leave."
The big picture: The bar's displacement is part of an ambitious redevelopment south of the river by construction behemoth Related Cos.
- The New York-based real estate firm is aiming to remake a 6-acre site on South Congress near Riverside with a multi-tower project that could include 800 apartments, a 225-room hotel, 200,000 square feet of office space, 90,000 square feet of retail space, 30,000 square feet of space for restaurants and a 25,000-square-foot grocery store, per documents filed with the city and as reported earlier this year by Austin Business Journal.
While briefing the city's Environmental Commission in February, Dawood Rouben, one of the developers of the project, said that Ego's "will most likely be the only thing that remains, and gets relocated somewhere else in the development — we think it is a mainstay and staple of the neighborhood."
Zoom out: The redevelopment fits into a coming transformation along the south shore of Lady Bird Lake, with plans to remake the 19-acre American-Statesman property, Texas Department of Transportation buildings, a tire shop and other businesses in the area.
What we're watching: How you re-create the very, very lived-in feel of a bar in a sleek new redevelopment.
If you go: Find them at 510 S. Congress Ave. The bar has promised a final hurrah for the longtime location.
- Check their Instagram for updates on hours each day.