Austin
Alone

PRACTICAL SAMPLE

Eating Alone, Concretely

Counter service is the easiest and most natural way to eat alone in Austin. Breakfast taco counters, barbecue joints with order-at-the-window systems and the food-truck pods on South First Street and South Lamar make solo dining structurally unremarkable: you order, and you eat where you stand or sit.

Barbecue is the one counter-service format with a real wait: the most famous pits draw long lines, and The Pleasures of the Table weighs the wait and names alternatives. A solo traveler can join those lines comfortably; people in line tend to chat, and a single person often finds a seat inside more easily than a larger group does.

Sit-down restaurants are equally workable for a solo diner, particularly at a bar seat or a counter facing an open kitchen, as at Caroline on Congress Avenue, both increasingly common design choices in Austin’s newer restaurants specifically because they suit a single diner or a couple who wants a casual meal. If a restaurant tries to seat you at a bad table simply because you are one person, ask for another; solo diners are common enough that the request registers as ordinary rather than unusual.

A free excerpt from Austin Alone.