The Dead Rabbit, Austin — Restaurant in Austin

$29 for two premade Sysco frozen cod fish fillets with a couple french fries, not even a basket. Just a couple. $10 for a Guinness plus tax and tip…you in it for $60. $60 for one beer and some Long John Silvers. Imagine bringing a date to Dirty and dropping $150 on literally deep fried fast food while getting elbowed by drunk college kids. Whoever thought of serving $30 fried fish in the trashiest part of town needs to be fired. I’ll bet within a month there will be a street vendor selling fish and chip baskets out front for $15.

Edit: I love the dude trying to justify the prices like we don't have the internet. Total Wine in Mueller sells a 50L keg of Guinness for $205. That's retail to consumer, they get better pricing. That's 100 pints of beer. Cost is $2 a pint. Industry standard markup is 200-300%. Their markup is 400% or $10 a pint using consumer pricing. Their actual markup is closer to 450% with wholesale pricing. Let's not get into some of your other beers. Coors? You're over 1000% markup.

Cod is a little more expensive right now. The two fillets cost approx. $2 each, plus breading, etc. Fries and peas are basically free, a couple cents. That's just labor cost to prep. So the fish and chips costs approx. $5. So we're looking at approx. a 700% markup on the fish and chips. Industry standard is 300% for pub food. Dudes acting like he's invented fried fish like I can't go buy a $8 box of Gordon's battered cod at HEB and air fry it to crispy perfection.

So on one fish and chip dinner with one beer, on the $49 tab minus tax.... you're profiting $42 per meal. For literally fast food. Your average nightly sales (beer and food) I estimate are approx. $20,000 on the low side. You brag about investing "millions" yet with your insane markups you're looking at a ROI of about 1 year which is nothing short of a cash grab.

You don't "revitalize" a district known for homeless people and drunk college kids by trying to gentrify it with the highest beer and food markups on the block. This is Austin, Texas. Did you not do a single ounce of marketing research? What is Austin obsessed with? Tourists obsessed with? Retro western. Tex mex. Cowboys. Vintage cars. Live music. Nobody flies to Austin to get $40 fish and chips and a $10 pint LOL. Bro you need a refund on your college degree. This might have worked on West 6th towards The Betty or Statesman where it's more of an upper end district, but dirty 6th next to Voodoo...

Food was certainly the highlight for me. Drinks and food were both quite marked up. Less of a problem for me on the food side given the quality but on the drink side it’s all the same wherever you go so that was a harder one to swallow. Had hoped to catch some of the Scottish Open but there are zero TVs in the entire place so definitely not going to be my new Boxing Day spot as I’d hoped. I get that’s not what they are going for but still a big disappointment. Staff was friendly. My only true criticism with the chicken pot pie I got was that the gravy (which is served on the side) was very lumpy. The staff was kind enough to bring us a corned beef sample. Haven’t had one that good since Mother Egans closed. Overall I liked it a lot but the price and being a sports fan it will be a spot I visit less than I had initially predicted. Worth a visit though.

EDIT: IDK if there’s a way to respond to a response so doing this. As far as prices, you guys are totally in one of the most expensive strips in Austin. Gotta do what you gotta do. I recognize that but was mentioned as an FYI to others reading the review. It’s gonna be pricy. IMO it was worth it but isn’t gonna replace my regular spot as a result. Which isn’t bad! As for TVs. I love that y’all have a vibe and stand by it. Personally tho there hasn’t been a spot to watch footy on Boxing Fay in years so I’m sad. I get it tho. For drinks, get what you’re saying but I do Miller Lite and Jameson’s shots. No great ice or top notch ingredients needed. I’d suggest tweaking the price on something basic like that doing “happy meal” specials. Something to open the spot up to the average joes. If you want regulars they need a break in some way. Keep doing what your doing. More pubs is never a bad thing and I’m excited for...

We went to the soft opening this week on the 4th, along with a lot of other people, it was slammed!

Lovely greeting by the man at the door, who asked our names and welcomed us in (and checked our ids! Thank you sir 😂).

My initial reaction was that the noise inside was deafening, you had to basically shout to be heard. I couldn’t really hear the hostess at all or my partner who was sitting across from me. It sort of died down in noise a bit as we were there so not sure if there were just really loud people standing by the bar or we got acclimated (it was a bit hard to hear for a while when we left)

Enjoyed looking at the wall decor, very eclectic. I felt like I could basically touch the two tables next to us 😅 which didn’t help with noise I’m sure.

Service was understandably slower, as it’s new and they were very busy. We weren’t overly in a hurry but wasn’t our last stop for the evening so we were grabbing a drink and trying a couple food items.

Our server was great and kept checking on us/giving us updates. He nicely brought us a shot as our food came out before our drinks (he later said the drinks didn’t get put in and brought us out a coffee slushy thing too, which was unexpected). He really went above and beyond.

My partner got the espresso martini and really liked it - very strong but velvety and not too harsh. I had the Irish Rose cocktail, which was light and refreshing.

The corned beef sliders were amazing!! As this was a pre-dinner stop #norules 😅, I ordered the vanilla crème brulee and while good, it was an underwhelming flavor (mostly just sugar, no depth).

Overall we will return again, especially to try more of the...