There's Even Music at the Grocery Store

Austin is a city of live music.  It’s everywhere: in the clubs, in the restaurants, on the street corners, in the schools... everywhere.  One of the things I love most about Austin is the over-abundance of live music.  You can head out your door on any given day and I would be willing to bet you money that it would only take you ten minutes or so to find someone playing music.

It may sound strange when I say that my new favorite place to go hear music is actually a grocery store, but take into account the fact that it’s a grocery store in Austin and it begins to make sense.  There’s a Central Market (the organic and gourmet branch of the local chain) a couple blocks from my house.  It’s well within walking distance, which has proved useful since I tend to shop a bit sporadically and often realize that even though I was just at the store yesterday, I need to go back today.  This particular Central Market also has a rather large prepared food section that’s half-way decent and a gorgeous patio area with trees and tables where you can eat the food. On Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays they have local bands playing for free outside on that patio.  So you can go to the grocery store, do your shopping, buy yourself a dinner, and eat it in the afternoon sun under the shade of trees listening to FREE MUSIC.  It really doesn’t get better than that.

Actually it does, because Central Market is a gathering place for all types of people: older couples sway to the strains of the local indie-rock band that happens to be playing at 6:30 on Friday and next to them, a four year old is excitedly jumping up and down while her father chases her around frantically, carrying an ice cream cone.  It’s one of the best places to people watch.  Today a couple who clearly were trained in ballroom dance spent the first half of the band’s set dancing really impressively and the second half teaching a bunch of thrilled children how to swing dance.   This is what I love about Austin.