The 04 Lounge

This place is an awesome place to get drinks and enjoy a football game. They have good prices and will put on any game you want to see. The bartenders are also really nice and personable. I highly suggest this place to get a drink and chill.

This bar is an old favorite. It really reflects the ‘Old South Austin’ atmosphere.
Drinks are economical, there is a jukebox that plays music on the patio as well.
It’s a dive bar not a faux dive bar. A lot of the staff has been there for years so there is a chummy atmosphere, but not cliquey.
Definitely check it out if you aren’t up for W. 6^th.
I am sure to take friends and family members who are visiting to get a feel for south Austin.

I don’t get out to bars very often, but when I do … This little bar is awesome. The bartenders are very friendly and creative with their «special of the day.» The real attraction is the diversity of clientele. And everyone is so friendly! There is usually a short wait for the pool tables, but the competition is always light hearted and fun for all skill levels. PEOPLE ACTUALLY SPEAK TO EACH OTHER. Whether you’re puttin on the Ritz or Homeless Joe, all are welcome and cordial. There is also a great patio for the (ahem) smokers. Let’s face it, this is a dive bar, no pretentions, just a great place to catch your breath and enjoy an adult beverage with a toss of humanity. See ya there soon.

This is definitely a hole in the wall. Im pretty sure it was a barrio bar before. The drinks are soco overpriced too. Hmmm that makes no good sense. And whomever said this isn’t a hipster bar lied this is as hipster as it gets! Definitely not as Douchy as Crow bar but just give it time!

My absolute favorite dive bar in town for the night you just want to go out with a friend and drink your problems away or get black out drunk where no one knows your name this is the place just always take a cab and make sure to tip well as you drink and have fun

Great little sport to grab cheap drinks and meet new people. My husband and I love coming here for drinks and pool :)

This place is dank, a little dirty, the right amount of scary, and absolutely unpretentious. Seriously… what’s NOT to like about this place? This is a great bar to avoid all the little college kids and parasitic hipsters. Pool table, solid juke, and well stocked bar. What more do you need? Sure, you won’t find any extensive beer list, fancy ass ‘craft’ cocktails, or infused liquors… but who cares. This is place you go to if you want to be around a laid back crowd of locals who just want to chill and have a few drinks. The bartenders are always attentive and cool. It’s not uncommon to pop a squat at the bar and strike up conversations with other patrons. If this place were closer, it could easily be my go to for a drink.

Great dive bar to take your girlfriends parents so that they can throw a chair if they lose a pool game. Such class!!! Always fun and they have a back patio where you can smoke.

This is definitely a dive bar. There’s shit everywhere in there, and lots of clutter, and it seems kind of dirty, but it probably is. This bar still has it’s charm, however, and I do love it. The bartenders are all my pals and the owner Benny is a super nice guy, and those are the main reasons why I go there. Knowing my money goes in their pockets to pay their bills makes me feel good when I want to go get sh*tfaced there.
Benny has been trying very hard to upgrade the place, and it’s a seemingly slow process but he’s using labor from patrons that come to the bar so you have to love that — it’s the American way to do business if you ask me.
Some of the patrons are idiots and dickheads, but I have learned to ignore them mostly over the years and just hope they get 86’d, and some of them do. When I see too many people hanging out that I might not like you might find me leaving.
Overall though, this is one of my favorite bars in Austin, because it’s like a goddamn family there, even though it might be a white trash family. Just sayin’.
Bottom line:
1. Go there and support hard working Americans
2. Tuesday does have dollar high life bottles so go get s**tfaced for 10 bucks.
3. Bartenders are people that you’ll love
4. There are 2 pool tables for your enjoyment.

Check your Austin hipster-​self at the door when you come on in the 04 Lounge. Ain’t none of that fancy-​schmancy atmosphere in here, just true, total dive bar non-​glitz. A killer jukebox, coupla pool tables, mismatched tables and chairs, and a ladies room that has enough coats a red paint on the walls to make you feel like you’re powderin’ your nose in a New Orleans brothel. The odor of old cigarette smoke still adorns the dark-​paneled (perfect) walls, and the clientele is true 04 neighborhood folk, laughing, playing pool and not being pretentious in the least. The bartender serves up a good, stiff cocktail along with a great big smile and friendly conversation, too, so what’s not to like?
True dive-​bar style, too, is there’s no kitchen in the joint, but if you get hungry you can fill your gob at El Borrego de Oro just down the street, another divey spot on the corner of S. Congress and Ben White (simply scrumptious Mexican fare to soak up the stiff drinks).

True story… we saw the sign and pulled in to check it out. We had just left the beer barn with cold beverages in hand and decided to just chuck them and go on in. Parking out front was a little confusing, but the owner who was outside leaving, steered us in and made sure to let us know we fine parking in the spot we were in and to have a great time. This friendlyness continued once we entered the bar. One item we forgot was, we had just left the Capital Area Food Bank Voluteer Unilocal gig and were sporting bright red I Unilocal shirts… both of us…
The bartender greeted us with a big smile and declared, I love me Unilocal Peeps. really! Seriously? Yes, he was actually and a really personable and fun barkeep. Actually, everyone in the darn place was pretty fun and animated. Lot’s of laughter and people striking up conversations. all seem to be regulars and wanted us to be as well. How friggin cool is that? After awhile, I was still so self concious regarding my shirt so I asked to buy one of their lounge shirts. He came with two and gave one to Suzie… again, very nice gesture.
All in all, we really liked this place. A very friendly divey bar is just the ticket at times. Gald we happened to pop in.

i have never had such a horrible experience anywhere in all of Austin since i moved here in 2006.
and no. it’s not because i do not understand /​hate dive bars. i actually fuckin dig the shit out ‘em. or most of them anyway — hence why the hell i found myself there in the first place.
moral of the shit is. i suggested it to a girlfriend of mine on the fly one afternoon/​evening-​ish — as i had somehow never checked it out in all my years.
from the moment we walked through the door the bartenders went way out of their way to be fucking rude. before even making it to the bar — homeboy was blatantly mocking my friend to a crowd of his. who were just absolutely eating it up. even throwing in a heckle or two despite seeming to have little to no awareness of their surroundings at all. let alone to have something to mock my friend about.
bartenders then accused us both of being underage — despite the fact that we each had more than one form of ID .and several credit/​debit card type shits that were all legit. and that we are both 25 years old.
got so pissed off that we actually left the shithole & each picked up our passports. haha this time they didn’t even let us in the door. i mean literally they had someone out front blocking the door. hahhaa seriously though.
anywho — we left and hit up fuckin went east looking for a similar scene minus the asstards we’d just encountered. found it immediately — and while venting our frustrations to said bartender. we also learned that the mian douchehole bartender — has a reputation around town /​is known for being just that. a douchhole fucking bartender.
ha. rant — over. for now.

I go here when I want to go where nobody knows my name. Its my anti-​Cheers.
They have beer, good pours, cheap prices, pool tables, old timers, bad smell, worse smelling toilets, lots of tattoos, a jukebox, a patio area which smells bad too.
You fill find an oddball crowd here. You know the kind of young women who have a Japanese symbol for beauty, but really means spicy tuna roll, tattooed on their forearm. The kind of young men who haven’t showered in a while, and their hair and beard haven’t felt a sharp edge in a while too. Ok the young women haven’t showered in a while to, but its their choice.
Either ways, its a good place to occassionally hangout.

moon

Cheap beer. Weird characters. Copious filth. Missing teeth. Bathrooms without locks on them. Mildew and urine.
Yeah, it’s a dive bar. There’s not much to say about this dingy little place on South Congress; you’re either there because you’ve been dragged there by someone who think it’s neat to go slumming, or you’re the kind of person who gets drunk before sundown on as many weekdays as possible.
Here’s a cool 04 anecdote: last time I was there, a huge roach crawled across the bar about 12 inches in front me heading God knows where. Dodging my empty can and the half-​hearted swats of the bartender, it made it into the straw holder. It got coaxed out and smashed, and without missing a beat, the bartender plucked out an unwashed straw to toss in some poor unwary chump’s cocktail.
I don’t take off any stars for that display of hilariously illegal hygiene, because if you go here you should know to drink only the cheapest canned beer you can find, for safety purposes. They do have a decent selection of fancier cans like Oskar Blues, but where exactly do you think you are? Get that hipster shit out of here.

For some reason I thought this place had closed a long time ago. Maybe I saw the signs before and then lost track of it. Or maybe because the garage near it suddenly changed and I just got the two mixed up? I have no idea. And it’s a shame, because I missed out on a good thing by thinking this.
The beer selection is pretty good, and at the standard prices around here. It’s a little crowded, so if you have a hint of claustrophobia, this may not be the place to go on a busy night. I’ll see myself here with some frequency-​if only because 78 745 doesn’t have a good selection of bars. Maybe they can start a 45 lounge?

This is the best dive bar in 78 704.
Trust me, if you don’t like dive bars you really won’t like this bar. It will scare the shit out of you. It’s a no frills, discreet window-​less building setback from South Congress that is easy to never notice while driving by. The beer selection is good while the liquor selection focuses more on the essentials. Service is great and you’ll likely run into people that still frequent the bar from the Dee & Jim’s era.
The internet jukebox can be annoying at times but it’s easy to meet new people and strike up a conversation once you figure out who’s who. Theres always something special going on and they really like to take care of their regulars when they throw parties.
Bars like this are a dying breed– frat boy meat markets and uppity cocktail lounges with live cover bands are in demand. Young adults have come to expect matching furniture and Peach Schnapps Shooter specials. They’ll have to tear the 04 down before that ever happens…
One day I’ll be telling the new generation about bars like this and this one is sure to make that list.

Ok so … I love dirty dive bars… and honestly this bar may be the ultimate in dirty dive bars!
As I walked in I noticed an odd smell which I decided to ignore. I walked up to the bar and ordered 2 drinks and smiled when I noticed my beer was 1.50.
I wasn’t adjusted to the smell yet so I decided to go sit on the patio.
I happened to see a friend on the Patio so I sat down an began drinking. I was approached by several very sketchy characters throughout the night and as I listened to the music I noticed their seemed to be no link between the songs.
I heard everything from UGK to Johnny Cash to Def Leopard. I had read some reviews and went to investigate the Juke Box thats when I noticed it was just a huge internet connected touch screen that could basically play any song. Its probably a good idea to get here early and perform a take over of the juke box!
This bar is like a cultural melting pot. You see every class and race of people mingling together enjoying the cheap drinks.
After a little while I had adjusted to the bars odd smell and the odd variety of music and then I began to see the true beauty of this place. Its like reading a Bukowski novel… its often crass and hard to appreciated but a beautiful work of art underneath the surface.
Erase all of your expectations and go to 04 Lounge for a cheap beer. it will make you a better person.

Great dive bar located on South Congress.
If you enjoy cheap drinks, people watching and an excellent jukebox then this is your place. They’ve got 2 pool tables (a $ 1 a game), and an outside seating area.

I recently realized that I had never wrote a review for the 04 lounge. Now granted I am not the end all be all of reviewers for this site but I generally do not miss a chance to review a place I frequent as much as I do the 04. That being said I have 2 rules for this review that I will strive to follow: I WILL NOT CALL IT A DIVE… IF YOU HAVEN’T“T GOTTEN THE POINT THAT THIS PLACE IS A DIVE BAR PLEASE MOVE ALONG. Secondly, I will try to tell the truth and make it sound as good as possible.
Everything about this place is ugly except the bartenders. (TRUTH). This is not a place you go if you want to see pretty people, pretty art, pretty drinks. The smoking area is a soupy, muddy mess. The bathrooms are shoe boxes with 2 toilets (men’s room). The bar area is always crowded. Parking isn’t bad since you can park behind Napa as well.
That being said I love to finish my night at the 04. The people working and the fellow patrons are a friendly bunch who want nothing more than a cold beer or a shot of whiskey and I can relate to that. Also the jukebox isn’t bad… The prices are reasonable and its like 2 blocks from my house (my bias).
If you like a place to have a cold beer with no other pretenses then I recommend swinging by the 04, if you require some kind of garnish on your drink then I’d avoid the 04 because to them Ice is your garnish.