Swim Club — Restaurant in Austin

Okay look, 30 minutes in I was absolutely loving this place. The drinks and apps are SO tasty and well worth the value, and initially our server, Ritchie, was friendly and gave some great recommendations!

The Labneh was absolutely stunning, the toasty pistachio and lemony flavors were strong yet well balanced. And out of the two mezcal cocktails I ordered , the Oaxacan Oasis and the Skinny Dip, the Skinny was an absolute standout drink with subtle sweetness from the coconut to balance the strong smokiness.

Once the main course food began to arrive is where the problems began. A friend (whose birthday we were celebrating) had a less than stellar seafood entrée that Ritchie offered to comp for a new one. I said “thank you so much!” to which he looked startled? then said something to the effect of “ your pizza will be out in a minute“ and hurried away. Weird but okay.

After that, his demeanor completely deteriorated. When the friend’s replacement entrée came out and I had had about an hour to munch on appetizers without my pizza arriving, I asked to get it to-go as I was pretty satisfied with my appetizers thanks to the many ($3) 1 serving tortilla chip refills offered. I was met with “It’s coming out right now.” and “I was just spacing out the food so the table wouldn’t be full” which was just an odd thing to say given the earlier out-of-place comment.

The pizza came out, our waiter came over and made a loud celebratory comment about my finally receiving the pizza that didn’t land super well given our earlier exchange, and I ate a slice so I didn’t look anymore disagreeable. At this point, I was just super uncomfortable and wished I had just stopped at the Labneh and picked up some P Terry’s on the way home.

We decided to take it to go and skip dessert. The payment situation is where the experience became truly unpleasant. Admittedly, we had a super weird payment situation trying to itemize the bill and pay for items for the friend’s birthday and should have just itemized it later between friends. Once it was too confusing and things became “messed up”, he left our table for about 10 minutes or so and continued service, which made some sense because it was busy. We waved him back. He super snappily asked our friend if she was paying the whole bill, set the Toast payment processor down, and left the table. After she payed we noticed her total was about half of the original bill price, and realized the bill was still probably split from when we wanted to itemize it and we still owed about 100 bucks. We tried to catch our server’s attention without disturbing other diners and though he saw us a few times, he wouldn’t come back. Thankfully, all of us have service experience and have used Toast before, so we found our table and paid the other two parts of the bill ourselves. We decided not to bother trying to catch his attention and just left the payment processor on the table at that point.

Super bummed that this place disappointed so badly, because I did enjoy the drinks, apps, atmosphere, and service at the beginning of our experience and it did quickly become so busy that I could totally understand longer wait times on the pizza, etc. But by the end of it, I just felt defeated and ready to go anywhere else honestly.

If you come to Swim Club, expect a very cute and quickly crowded space with a yummy drink + snack selection, but do not expect a “special dinner” service + culinary experience.

And if you end up with our server, maybe just go ahead and see...

There are some silly reviews for a spot that opened a week ago, so despite only going once I feel like I’ve gotta weigh in:

This is a huge indoor space with a decent sized outdoor area around the pool. The pool pass is separate. The design is cute and playful, very photographic, but still functional They will validate parking at the hotel (Downright) garage for you; there’s not much street parking in the vicinity, but if you’re coming from I-35, head west on 10th St. If you don’t find a spot there, hang a right on Red River; finally, into still don’t nab something on the street, turn right on 11th, pull into the hotel entrance, and continue forward right on into the garage. If you’re coming from the hotel lobby, the restaurant is on floor 1; the elevator exit is cute, so it’s worth going in this way Lots of cocktails for $15 each. Beer from $7-9. A few frozens and a couple mocktails on the menu. Of the 4 drinks we tried all were well balanced aside from the frozen aperol which was a bit sweet but not unreasonable. Food is kind of elevated bowling alley with a pool-side twist to it; think elevated pub food, but if it were in Miami Vice. The fries were excellent which is not something I normally say—I make my own because most aren’t good. These were surprising. We were there on July 4th so we had some special hot dogs—I don’t think those will be a normal menu item, but they were fun and fit the vibe well. We sat next to the pool window and it was pretty busy. It was a bit distracting but definitely fun seeing people in the water. It was a novel experience and if you’re curious, it’s probably worth doing on a busy day. Honestly not finding myself in the area much and the food doesn’t have anything clawing me back in, but the drinks were solid, the vibe was good, and the people watching was fun, so I’ll definitely be back in the near future Despite the size, this is not a spot for kids, families, or large...

Ooooooooooffffffff this was such an incredibly horrible experience. My husband and I planned our date night here. We were initially greeted by two hostesses who were absolutely lovely. We were seated quickly (it was 6pm on a Monday night) and the atmosphere was fun and vibrant. We brought our patience as other guests had recommended but not enough for what we were about to encounter. I ordered a beer (that was listed on the menu) and was brought the wrong beer. I double checked with the waitress and even pointed to what I wanted on the menu. She came back and insisted that it was a typo on the menu. “Live Oak Hefeweizen” seems like a long typo - but whatever. We order our appetizer and sit back enjoying the atmosphere. We notice the table seated after us get the exact same appetizer we ordered before us. Our waitress is no where to be found. After 20 more minutes of waiting the hostess that greeted us brought our food. Our appetizer was brought with our food to which we explained we no longer wanted as we wanted it before our food. She was super kind and took it back. Our waitress never once came back to check on us, ask if our food was okay, nothing. When serving the table next to us she started turning her back to our table. We had to walk up to the bar where we requested to cash out … and what do ya know it ?!? A live oak Hefeweizen being served - so you didn’t even walk 20 ft to confirm if you had a beer that IS ON your menu??? Horrible service, mediocre food. Definitely will not be visiting again. All other employees were extremely kind, but this waitress probably should find a new job. This was by far one of the worst restaurant experiences...