Hudson On Fifth

I had the worst service I’ve ever had here. I went to buy several drinks that totaled to $ 16. The bartender asked if I’d like change back and I said yes. This apparently upset him and he tossed all of my change into a puddle on the bar. No big deal. I was working on shaking the excess liquor off of my change when the bartender came around the bar and yanked the bills out of my hand saying, «oh, I’m so sorry sweetheart! Did I get your change wet?» I insisted it was fine and tried to take the changed back. He said, «no, let me get you some dry ones» and started pulling dry ones out of the tip jar. I thanked him and tried to put a $ 2 tip into the jar. He then pulled the $ 2 back out telling me to keep it because I clearly need it. I have never been treated so poorly in any establishment where I was a paying customer (I actually can’t think of anytime that I’ve been treated so poorly). I definitely will not be returning and will warn my friends of the poor service as well. There are plenty of other bars I can spend my money at and be treated significantly better.

Indoor & outdoor… works for me.

I don’t go downtown often (especially after 2 kids) so I thought I should review this place since I haven’t been to a bar in Austin in a while. I guess I liked it. I went during Relays weekend and much to my surprise, the place was DEAD at midnight. It was a little uncomfortable because I hadn’t been out in a while and nobody was doing anything. The dance floor was empty and the DJ kept playing some music that didn’t seem fitting. The atmosphere was a bit unfriendly and I felt awkward with dudes just watching like hungry dogs. Gentlemen, don’t just stare like hungry dogs looking at a bone. After a drink and a better play list I started to feel more comfortable. Then people started pouring in. The energy became more enjoyable and I had fun dancing (finally!). I won’t go out of my way to go to this place, but I wouldn’t object to going again. I guess I’m not for or against.

DJing the 2^nd Anniversary party

Great place to hang out with the girls inside and out. Good music and quick bar service.

My wife and I venture downtown only when company is in town and wants to go out. We were not sure were to have everyone meet, so when we arrived DT we came upon this place as an open atmosphere bar. We quickly headed inside and notified everyone to meet here to start the night. I guess we had beat the crowd because 10 minutes later the crowd was quite different from what we expected… I can say the drinks were cheap but just not my style.
Music way to load but some good tunes
People were a little thuggish, at least this night they where.
Very difficult to move around
I would return to give it another try for the simple fact the drinks were cheap

I had Rihanna’s «Cheers» song in my head all last Friday as we partied downtown. Thought it an appropriate vehicle for my Hudson’s review:
Cheers to the freakin weekend
I drink to that, yeah
Oh, let the vodka sink in
I drink to that, yeah
Don’t let that bastard* get you down
Turn it around with another round
There’s a party at the bar everybody putcha glasses up and I drink to that!
Life’s too short to be lookin for a place to dance
Vodka givin me ants in mah pants, yeah
6^th Street’s douchy and my man don’t want no gay bars
Austin is hella short on good dance floors, yeah
Got my 4 inch heels and my low cut dress on
Wanna shake my ass and act like a moron, yeahhhh
Cheers to the freakin weekend
I drank to that, yeah
Oh, let the shots sink in
I drink to that, yeah
Don’t let the douchebags get you down
Turn it around with another round
There’s a party at the bar everybody putcha glasses up and I drink to that!
Might be mad but we’re givin Hudson’s a try
Gogo dancer’s givin me the sexy eye, yeah
All the youngsters dancin grindin on each other
Shit I’m old enough to be they mother, yeah
Got my ho dress on so I don’t give a damn tonite
Gonna dance and sweat til they close it down, alright, yeahhhh
Cheers to the freakin weekend
I puked to that yeahhh
Oh let the tylenol sink in
I drink to that yeah
Don’t let the hangover get you down
Turn it around with some hash browns
There was a party at the bar, everybody had they glasses up and I’ll drink to that!!!
*my coworker

This place is a bar. They have drinks.
Go here if you like Ed Hardy, Christian Audigier, or dudes that wear those sorts of things.
Also go here if you hate hearing your friends talk. I mean, I’m 23! I’m not an old lady but this place is LOUD. I also wasn’t really a fan of the layout — I had a really hard time pushing past the bar crowd just to get to the bathrooms.
That said, they had pretty nice bathrooms for the ladies.

Hudson is great… cheap drinks, great staff… always something fresh going on there.
They are open daily for Happy Hour at 4 pm.
On Tuesdays they have a HudSIN night party with Abe the Assassin and DJ Silver.
Wednesdays they have DJ Luis Ramirez.
Thursdays they have DJ Mike Swing.
And the weekends they rotate DJ’s.
Always a good time at Hudson.
Indoor patio for smokers and back half of the bar for bottle service etc.

I’ve been here a few times, usually during the afternoon around happy hour when we’re bar hopping around and we go «oh, hey, there’s a patio here» and stop in for a beverage. And usually just one.
Now, you can’t smoke ANYWHERE in here anymore. Even outside in the corner of the patio far far away from the bar. We walked by and saw people doing it later but when you’re the only patrons, you gotta play by the rules.
Even though they wouldn’t let us smoke, the bar staff was fairly friendly. Strongggg pours here. The TV on the patio is boring — they have to keep it on this ad channel thing.
I’ll be back, I’m sure, but probably just for my usual one drink late afternoon.

Alright, so I think I would really give this 4 stars, as it’s not the BEST place in Austin to grab a beer. But this place is way, way better than the bad reviews it got earlier.
However, with all that being said, I want to give this a good rating for a few awesome reasons. First, Hudson’s has very great deals on Fridays. Most Friday’s out of the year you can find their unlimited FREE crawfish. It’s from 5−8pm. If they aren’t serving crawfish, then they’ll serve unlimited wings (different flavors — Parmesan is my fav).
I first saw the crawfish deal on
. I looked up on Unilocal to see if it was a good place to go and the reviews were horrible. But do512 told me that not only would they give me crawfish for free, but they would have $ 2 beer and $ 3 deep eddy vodka. (Currently I’m not sure if the drink deal is still on, but I’ve heard through the grapevine that they are brining the drink deal back!) That’s practically a steal. I told a handful of my friends about the deal, told them it was probably a sh*tty place to go (considering the Unilocal reviews), but that we should try it out because the deal is so great.
Well, I’m glad I trusted my instincts, because we ended up having a blast. Also, on another note, this place has GREAT 90’s Hip-​hop Back-​in-​the-​day music. I’ve never thought the music was loud (according to some other reviews on Unilocal), and I’ve never really hung out in the back… I’ve always been on the patio side. But every time I’ve been to Hudson’s, 3 times to date, it’s been nothing but success. Dennis, the manager, is also very helpful if you have any problems.
Either way, I think this place deserves more credit. And that’s coming from a true born and raised Austinite who tries to stay away from the «douche-​baggy» scenery that can be 6^th street. Like I said, it doesn’t beat the «old» ginger man or the draught house or hole in the wall or the flying saucer, but considering no one else in Austin has a better deal than Hudson’s on Friday’s, I say definitely Give It A Try! Especially on Fridays :)

For some reason, I haven’t quite clicked with Hudson’s on Fifth. Which is strange, because there is so much about it that I like. I like the patio bar (though I wish they’d turn the music down a little). I like the spacious bathrooms (early, before it gets gross). I like the color scheme and artwork inside. And I especially like the Jalapeño-​Peach Martini, with fresh sliced jalapeño rounds floating on top. Not too sweet, perfectly spicy, absolutely refreshing! Even with all of this, it doesn’t top my list and I can’t put my finger on why. Maybe it’s because the music is too loud. But wow is that martini good!

The deuschebag factor is too high for me to even step inside this place. If someone wanted to meet me here, I would ask them where they were going next, and make plans to meet them at the next place.

Ok Hudson, so this time I came back on a hot Saturday night with girlfriends and ready to party. Yes, now it’s appropriate to bump your music loudly to get the crowd going unlike Happy Hour when I was there two weeks ago. In fact, dare I say that you play the best 90’s hip hop jams on W. 5^th! My fabulous Unilocal girlfriends, Monica O., Keri B., Andrea C., Lorena O., and Dej M. And I were happy singing along and reminiscing about how much we used to love «this song» back in the day.
Having a patio definitely distinguishes you from other bars in the area. And you know how much we love our patios here in ATX!
My G & T was pretty standard and reasonable for the $ 6 given that I didn’t have to fight a crowd to get to the bar.
Don’t think I necessarily would check the HH here again or could stay here all night, but you’re a good place to get the party started.

Met a group of Unilocalers at Hudson’s last night for a bar crawl. When there was just 9 people in the entire place, the music was already too loud. No live DJ, just satellite radio I assume.
After a couple rounds of weak drinks, more people started to come in, so they decided to crank it up from ‘concert loud’ to ‘hearing damage loud’. I had to get out immediately, and I did. My ears were still ringing when I got home.
And what was that shit about one of the two bartenders not being able to close my tab? The other girl had to? Amateurs.

Not worth returning to. The only redeeming quality is people-​watching up front by the sidewalk, which I couldn’t enjoy without earplugs.

Hudson’s: They bring the party to the street!

Uhhhh… hmmm… I’ve experienced much better bars.
Hudson seemed like it was banking on the already-​established Hudson’s-On-the-Bend name, which didn’t work. Keri B., Dej M., Quani C., and I happened in here after a wonderful experience next door at Townhouse. Hudson must’ve been hiding his best stuff in his underwear.
There was FREE CRAWFISH to be had upon entering Hudson, but it just didn’t help me develop a crush on the The Hudster. I’m not a huge crawfish fan, anyway, but it was free so I scored myself a few. I did actually eat more crawfish than I thought I would, but as Keri pointed out to me, it’s too much work for such a small amount of meat. The meat itself didn’t taste very good, but it was extremely spicy, which I did like.
My main problem with this place is that there was hip-​hop music blaring WAY TOO LOUDLY. I could hardly hear what Dej, Keri, and Quani were saying to me at all during our entire 1.5-hour stay at Hudson.
The artwork was beautiful, however. If you want a look at some great wall-​schlack, go to Hudson. [See my pictures for some details.] All of our chairs were taken from us, though, around 9:30pm. «Would you gals mind giving up these chairs? They’re not ours.» Who the hell do they belong to? And why the hell don’t you have your own chairs?
The special drinks of Sweet Tea Vodka/​Water we bought were good, and our bartender was hott… which prompted a have-​you-​ever-​dated-​a-​black-​man dialogue on the way to Frank. Wow! Oh yeah! Is that enough said?
I can’t see myself happening into Hudson again. The handsome bartender told Keri the only reason he wasn’t charging us for [tap] water was because one of us (me) got crawfish. Are you f-​ing kidding me? Who the hell charges for TAP water? I’d rather my friends feel like they can surely drive home, so go ahead and charge me for the damned crawfish and give them free water!
I proclaim Hudson on Fifth to be Dudson on Fifth.

This joint sits across the street from our office, so a co-​worker and I decided to give it a shot on a Friday afternoon during happy hour. As someone already said, the sweet tea vodka drinks are good and cheap. My friend ordered a Mexican martini that was about $ 9– just a drink, no shaker– during happy hour. So, if you’re not ordering a happy hour special, be prepared to cough it up. Friday afternoons here mean free crawfish, corn on the cob, and potatoes. None were that great, but hey, it was free.
On the service side, the bartender was efficient, if a little… vacant, perhaps? Didn’t go out of his way to be friendly. It’s been a while since I’ve seen so many people working in a bar. There were 3 or 4 guys running around cleaning up the mess and taking drinks. Several bartenders. At least 4 guys handing out the crawfish. Oh, and the Bud Light Girls were there. Can’t go wrong with free Bud Light sweatbands.
The place looks cool from the street and the front bar looks packed on Saturday nights with a trendy crowd. But what brings it down to a 3-​star (or even 2 ½) is the sheer lack of ambience when you get inside. Just average and not very appealing. Open space, odd seating arrangement.
I have a feeling I’ll give it another shot, just not in any hurry.

This is a neat spot that I went to for the first time after Valentine’s dinner with my gf. Dennis, who was bartending at the time makes the best mojito I have ever tasted. The 5^th street Manhattan was also very good. I am not sure if these are standard drinks but I liked them a lot. I recommend going here for a low-​key drink that is reasonably priced, well made and strong.
«Menu» Drinks were normally $ 9 but they serve them for $ 5 on Sundays

Pros–
— open patio area which is rare in this area
— friendly and fairly quick service
— several $ 6-​$ 8 glasses of wine
— good place to come have a drink and sit between sets at Antone’s
I don’t really have any ‘cons’. It’s a fine bar but there’s nothing really special about it for me.

I went to this latest addition to the Austin bar scene this past Saturday. I heard it was fairly new, and on previous occasions, it appeared to be a hot spot walking by, so I decided to give it a try…
My conclusion: this is just your average bar… nothing I particularly enjoyed.
Though the spacious patio area conveniently located on the corner of 5^th & Lavaca is great to people watch or to be seen if you’re one of the beautiful people, the inside bar/​lounge area is not happenin’. I understand it’s now winter so indoor heating is a privilege, but the weird humidifier/​mister being used made the indoor area really foggy and uncomfortable. The rainforest effect was a definite turn-​off for me.
Drinks were average. Prices were average. This place does have nice décor and the potential to be a great bar, but it really isn’t there yet. First off, they need to figure out their indoor/​outdoor temperature differential. Secondly, better marketing tactics (aka a website or twitter account) would help bring in more people and give this place more of a personality.