The Crown and Anchor is a fine place to relax and have a couple of pints of premium beer after a hard day of work or school at the University of Texas in Austin. It is only a few hundred yards down Speedway from the campus and they have plenty of room indoors, on a weather protected outdoor patio or on the open air deck out front. It appears they have standard pub food although I can't recall ever ordering any myself. The parking lot isn't huge but if you get lucky it's not that hard to find a parking place and if necessary there are usually lots of open parking meter slots right across the street during the day that are free after 5:30 in the afternoon. They have pool tables, darts and a large screen television plus the most extensive collection of cool neon beer signs I have ever run across. It's a college bar in a sense but seems to cater to a slightly older crowd than some of the other places close by the University. I've been in there many times over the years and never had a problem finding a seat or getting service. It's not my favorite bar in Austin but it ranks pretty high on the list and beats out plenty of others that also have merit. During the 80's it was called the Beach and doubled as a music venue. Timbuk3 and Daniel Johnston got their start there as well as being a regular performance venue for Kathy McCarty and Glass Eye. They don't do music anymore but that doesn't take away from the charm and ambience that make a great bar great.
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