A giant jackalope statue at the door, B-movies on TV and a kitchen that runs until late.
The Jackalope sits at 404 E 6th Street, between Trinity and San Jacinto, in the middle of the entertainment district. The bar's identifying detail is a life-size taxidermy-style jackalope statue at the entrance, which the official 512area.com profile and the Tripadvisor photo set both lead with. Visitors are encouraged to pose with it — the bar's only rule is that the photographer must be holding a drink. The room has been voted Best Dive Bar in Austin readers' polls multiple times, per the venue's own promotional material and HeyAustin's "Bars on 6th Street" guide.
The right visitor wants a $9 pizza, an 80s-music dive room, and a strong well drink before the rest of 6th Street picks up. The wrong visitor wants polished service, a craft cocktail or anywhere that takes itself seriously.
The bar is a long, dim, sticker-covered room with the giant jackalope statue dominating the front near the door and a row of mismatched stools running the length of the bar. Wanderlog and the 512area.com profile both flag the same defining details: B-movies on the TVs, tattooed bartenders, an 80s-heavy playlist. There's a small back patio for smokers and overflow on busy weekend nights, and a grill operates from 11:00 a.m. through close with a pizza counter beside it.
The Jackalope is honest about being a dive: the cocktail menu is well-drink-led, the wines are an afterthought, and Texas pints anchor the beer list at $5–7. Tripadvisor reviews consistently flag the well drinks as "cheap and strong" — one of the most-repeated phrases in the top 30 reviews. The summer frozen rotation (margaritas, daiquiris) is the value play after 14:00.
The food is the underrated piece. Both a grill and a pizza counter operate from 11:00 a.m. until late, seven days a week. The burger gets the strongest reader callouts — "huge and greasy" is the recurring Tripadvisor note — and the pizza slice at $5 is the cheapest hot food on this stretch of 6th. r/austin's bar threads consistently call The Jackalope's kitchen "the actual reason to stop in."
Early evening reads as a downtown locals' room — service-industry folks getting a meal before shifts, a few residents who refuse to give 6th Street up. From 21:00 the bar turns over to the standard Dirty Sixth mix: tourists, bachelor and bachelorette parties, college groups making the crawl, plus stragglers from the cover-charge music bars next door. The bar's defenders on r/austin call it "the one bar on this block that didn't sell out," which is the kind of compliment a 6th Street dive earns by not changing.