The Aquarium

FUN, FUN, FUN! We had a blast. Upstairs is a great way to people watch below. Great bar staff, fantastic high energy music, and a friendly crowd all dancing with each other. Great way to meet new people.

Good drinks but the aquariums inside the bar are very dirty. Very sad for the fish. And your shoes WILL stick to the floor.

Great little sixth street bar. It’s very much classic dirty sixth; however, it’s far better than some of the crazier bars out there. The aquarium feature that it’s named after is a great backdrop, and the unique one way mirrors in the bathroom are… interesting to say the least. And the staff is great! Shannah is my favorite bartender on sixth street!

This place is garbage. Avoid at all costs. Took me FOREVER to get a poorly made, overpriced drink. Plenty of better bars in close proximity. Will not be back.

Had so much fun at the aquarium! Everyone is super nice, the music is good, and you can play beer pong or jenga if you want.
This was the bar I went to every day during my stay in Austin, and will be the bar I’m visiting next time I come to the city. Had tons of fun, got super wasted (drinks at the aquarium are the cheapest I payed for in the entire country), and even fell in love with one of the bartenders. I’m sure that a piece of my heart was left in this bar!
Definitely deserves 5 stars.

Greatest Bar in the history of the world! My friend Travis suggested I go there when I was in town so on a whim I decided to check it out… Lets just say this… I got there at 6:30PM and some stuff happened and then woke up the next morning with two new «friends» in my bed and a midget making omelets in my kitchen!
…The omelets were fantastic by the way… but your results may vary

I had a lot of fun. The drink prices weren’t bad. The staff were very nice and even though it was packed didn’t take to long for a drink. Well worth the experience

One of the oldest bars on 6^th St (1999) with one of the best staffs.
There is a reason why The Aquarium on 6^th has been a mainstay for almost 15 years and it is because of the amazing staff they always seem to have and because it is always fun.
Whether you’re a college student, a tourist in town for the weekend or just looking for a great bar to take a group of friends, Aquarium has a great crowd.
Be sure to ask for Burger, Chat or Tyler.
The best shot on the menu is the Orange Gatorade made with Austin’s Hideous Liqueur.

Probably the worst bartenders that I have ever encountered. The upside was that it was cheap, especially since I received the wrong change. I tried to do «the right thing» and give it back but the Lindsey Lohan-​eque bartender told me not to worry about it. Bless her heart.

This could have been an ugly review. But I’ll give an extra star for the bartenders because they’re cool.
I had a temporary license and showed it to the bouncer at the door. The bouncer looked at it and shook his head and handed it back to me, not letting me in. Fine that’s normal. I took out my old driver’s license along with the temp and handed it back to the bouncer, telling him that it was real. What he did next was «so shocking you wouldn’t believe it!» (trying to caption it like those facebook articles)
The bouncer took my temp, crumbled it up and threw it on the ground. No lie. I was so pissed. A nice stranger picked up my id and handed it back to me. Luckily there was another bouncer so I went to him and he was like «Woah chill man, go ahead. Sorry about that.»
I went inside, got my shot of Liquid Cocaine, and left. In case you were wondering… I was sober.

The Aquarium is one of Austin’s staples when it comes to 6^th street. When I was in college this was the go to place and it still is (for college kids). You get a free shot on your birthday so make sure you take advantage of that. The place is pretty much a dance floor and they have an upstairs bar in addition to the main bar.

this bar is connected to the bar next door the roofttop. sooo if you ever wanted to get into each one lol.
its really hot in here the service is slow they let people dance on the bar thats really ratchet and kinda cool and all but lets not lose all that bar room for service. because id really like to get my beer order. im just sayin’
drinks were kinda cheap.

SHORTY GOT A BIG OLE BUTT… OH YYYEEEEAAAAHHHHH!!! Oh Dirty Sixth, where do I start?
WAIT! I KNOW! I’ll start by mentioning that once upon a time when I was very VERY newly single about a year ago I ran into all of the team USA male Olympic swimmers here. Yes, I ran into Nathan Adrian, Matt Grevers, Ricky Berens, Conor Dwyer, and of course RYAN LOCHTE. It was an odd night, filled with going shot for shot with swimmers all 6’4 or taller and screaming «BIG TEN PRIDE HOLLLLAAAAA!!!» with them (Michael Phelps was not in attendance, but I have stories from college involving him… ask me about them some time). That’s also probably why my memories are a bit blurry and disjointed in nature. Oh well, you really only do live once and hey, it’s an excellent party story.
With that said, it seems like every time I end up at Aquarium, when I’m actually drinking, I make the ill advised drunken decision to dance on top of the bar. Let’s just say that this ain’t my first rodeo, so when someone mentions Dirty Sixth I always make sure I’m wearing boyshort or hipster underwear because there really isn’t anything tackier than dancing on a bar wearing a thong; yes, I said it.
This place seems to pick up after midnight like clockwork. Prior to 12AM it’s deserted and at the stroke of midnight suddenly there’s a monster line to get in. I don’t do lines, it’s not my thing and as Courtney W will testify, I’m very efficient at picking my way to the front of a line. However it gets ridiculously packed on the first floor. I wonder if this is some sort of fire code violation, but whatever, no one else seems to care. Maybe that’s why I dance on the bar… because there’s no room to dance anywhere on the floor.
The bathrooms aren’t too bad, but then again I’m not inclined to use the facilities at places like this unless absolutely necessary. The last time I was there, a group of girls ambushed me and wouldn’t stop touching my hair and exclaiming over my red lipstain; oh to be young and amazed by the world. I totally remember doing that as an 18… errr I mean 21 year old in college.
The thing is, my love for crowded bars with cheap and bad shots has faded with age. The last time I was here I got hit on by some questionably 21 year old guy whose pickup line was «Hey cutie, let me holla at you for a second.» Errrr no, I am too grown to be dealing with that mess. I feel kind of like the jaded, disenchanted older sibling watching these young kids frolic around when I’m sober. However, lucky for me, I’m Asian and somehow still look 18 years old which of course makes it seem perfectly acceptable when I lose my senses and climb onto the bar.
Yeah, unfortunately by the time I moved to Austin, I was already too old for places like the Aquarium and the rest of Dirty Sixth. It’s still a fun place for those occasional, trashy drunk nights but it’s not a regular haunt for me. However, Dirty Sixth is an Austin icon and hey, if you drop by the Aquarium you too may see an Olympic swimmer.

Perhaps four stars if you’re in your twenties, Three stars if you’re in your thirties.
Nothing wrong with bar full of young co-​eds dancing on the bar top, and everyone dancing to the latest jams — I’m keepin up with the best of y’all but…
Son, I’m a decade older than you. If I wasn’t so short in my flats (yes no heels for me to fall flat on my face on Dirty Six — that street is GROSS), I’d pat you on your under-​aged head and tell you to go home.
Just too old for this place. But I wasn’t always!

If you are looking for the 6^th Street experience The Aquarium is going to be hard to beat. Huge bar full of coeds looking to have fun and drink their face off. The Bar always has good energy on the weekends. This is the place girls hop onto the bar and dance. I remember those years! Bar staff is always on point and gets drinks to you fast.

Not a bad place for your bar hop along Dirty 6^th.
Music was solid and the bartop is always available for girls to dance on! Drinks were not price gauged either.

My favorite bar on 6^th street! Such good memories from my years in college here. The music is always good.

SHOT PONG! The more extreme version of beer pong. Why? Because the drinks here are so cheap! We were here on a Sunday night and they had $ 3 well specials. What better way to take advantage of this than to play shot pong?
This place is not so much for their aquariums which I was a bit disappointed in. If you name your place after something. it better be significant! They had like. 3 small fish tanks along the side with very minimal fish inside. I guess it qualifies?
They also had super jenga, which instantly became my favorite drunk game. Just try not to lose because it’s quite an adventure scooping out the pieces from under the booths.

I’d totally forgotten I visited the Aquarium until I was scrolling down my Facebook Timeline and saw one of my friends had checked me in here. We came to this bar two weekends ago for a bachelor party. It was one of our many stops along 6^th St. This was actually a pretty cool bar. It’s located on the second level of the building, so you have to climb some stairs to get in. The bouncer checking IDs was located on the sidewalk outside.
The Aquarium had a DJ playing mostly mainstream stuff. The space inside was separated into large sections. We hung out mostly in the back. The bartenders were friendly. The back has some «lounge» type seating as well as standing high-​top tables. Surprisingly clean restrooms. It was expectedly packed for a Friday night. Mostly 20-​somethings, though we did run into a few good-​looking cougars. Lots of attractive women. The best crop we’d seen at the bars all night. We also ran into a bachelorette party. The highlight of our visit was the concupiscent group of girls dancing the night away on the tables at the front. How I miss you, Austin.

This is a dirty bar. It gets super crowded at the early hour of 11:00 PM on 6^th and becomes very messy very quickly. The degradation is almost exponential if you come back here like we did after 1:00 am …
Either way, the drinks are cheap, the bartenders are fast in fast out kind of so they will get you what you need, and there isn’t much fuss to ordering either.
I do feel bad for the fish, I am pretty sure they are … traumatized for life? The DJ is nice though, all the times I’ve been here the music has been pretty good, but again … it’s a dive bar folks! It’s going to be sticky. Don’t wear nice shoes and most of all, please WEAR shoes…