Mother Egan’s Irish Pub

Mother Egan’s was one of those places I’d always biatch about and want to write a review about, but I always ended up going back.
Food was okay, trivia questions were horrendously hard but the servers made up for both with their cheer and the atmosphere was always fun.
Sadly, Mother Egan’s and Trivia nights are a thing of the past — they closed down on March 31^st of this year. St. Patrick must have smitten them with bad Irish luck.
In hind sight, you will be missed.

I’ve been going here for Texas Music Mondays for the past 9 months or so and love the atmosphere here. It’s really turned into one of my favorite places to bring friends to chill and have a beer and not have to deal with the usual complaints from W. 6^th bars… lines at the door, waiting forever at the bar, pretentious people… Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE W. 6^th bars like Union Park, J Black’s, The Ranch, Annie’s West, so on and so forth, but when I’m looking for a laid-​back night, I go here. You can actually carry on a conversation here without having to scream in someones ear.
Mondays have turned into my «Cheers» night where everybody knows your name… I’ve also met a couple of great guys while at Egan’s (wink, wink!) and I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence or what, but I try to convince my girls it’s just that kind of special place! Grant also does a great job booking bands: D
Can’t comment on Irish Car Bombs or food because I haven’t tried them yet (and probably won’t because I just don’t DO Irish Car Bombs… gross!) I am going to be very sad when it’s gone :(What will we do on Monday nights?

I’ve decided to post the «compliment» that I received from Ward L who works at (owns?) Mother Egan’s in response to my review below:
Ward L’s comments:
We appreciate your compliments as well as criticisms. That’s how we try to get better. As far as our ticket times on Tuesdays we do what we can. Please note that it’s not a staffing issue nor is it a question of competance. We have a small kitchen and if we added more staff to the kitchen it would only hurt matters. It’s tough to get everyones’ food out timely when 200 people show up and all order food within 15 minutes of eachother. So thanks for your patience and we’ll see you Tuesday night! :-)
— — — — — — — — –
Those of you fortunate enough to have a microwave sitting on your kitchen counter (or wherever you may like to display it proudly… mantle perhaps?) are better off making your own quesadilla at home rather than enduring a 2 hour wait for one here. Yes, yes — it was trivia night. No, no — they did not plan properly for the amount of people they would have.
Mother Egan’s has been hosting trivia night on Tuesday’s for quite sometime now. Everytime I’ve been, every table they have inside and out have been full of people. Why then do you only have a couple of waiters working these tables and why are you poorly understaffed in the kitchen then? Why oh why would it take you two hours to melt some cheese between two tortillas?
Even the girl who delivered it to me said «Here’s your quesadilla… 2 hours later. Heehee just kidding».
Me: «No, that’s pretty accurate»
Girl with my food: «Yeah, we’re pretty backed up in the kitchen»
Argh. Anyway, other than the terribly and painfully slow wait times, the drink service seemed to be pretty ok, the trivia is fun, and I love to torture myself so I will go back.

Played pub trivia last night for the first time at Mother Egan’s and had a great time. The bar is spacious with a fairly large patio to accommodate lots of tables of teams.
Structure of pub trivia is as follows: Stake a table out with your team. There is no limit to how many team members you have. Grab score sheets to write your team’s answers down from wait staff before trivia begins at 7:30pm. Must turn in teams name to be official as well. There are 7 rounds with 10 questions each. Questions are read out loud from the MC over the mic. Turn in answer sheet for scoring to the judges. Socialize until all team’s responses are tallied. Correct answers are read out loud along with the rankings of the teams and their points. Then next round begins.
The great thing is that everyone in the bar is playing so that way it is easy to hear the questions read because then you don’t have some tables not participating which eliminates the possibility of them being loud and obnoxious. BTW, the questions start off easy in earlier rounds and get harder as they go.
Pub trivia ends roughly around 10:00pm. Anticipate 15 minutes between each round. You can drink $ 4 Guinness and $ 3 Harp. The bar is packed so be prepared to wait at least 30 minutes from when you order your food. Positive is that the food is good.
Plan on being back next Tuesday.

Guys — I wanted to share Ward L.‘s message to me:
«Hello Alex. I am the bar manager at Mother Egans and I would like to apologize for Grant’s manner and choice of words here on Unilocal the other day. We are a family business. My brother owns the pub. I just wanted to let you know that it has always been my philosophy that if it’s not right, we will make it right. That goes for atmosphere, service, food and drink, as well as inappropriate treatment of guests whether in person or on the Internet :-) I am always open to constructive critisism. It’s the best way to improve. Again please accept my apology for Grant’s words. And drop by sometime and introduce yourself. If something wasn’t right with your experience we will get it right next time.»
This is good stuff, IMO, and a great example of how a business should handle itself when a wayard employee gets itself in these situations.
Perhaps I will swing by and try it out again; if they’re willing to own up to their mistakes, I owe it to them to give them a second chance. Anyone for trying out Pub Trivia next Tuesday?
I will update this with a proper review once I’ve been back, but I wanted to show that Egan’s had stepped up to the plate and taken ownership of the issue. That matters a lot to me, and giving them fair treatment is important too.

Thanks to Grant M’s comment, I now know that I’ll never step foot into Mother Egan’s Irish Pub again. I don’t know what this guy’s affiliation is with Mother Egan’s but his rant on my Mother Egan’s review pissed me off. First off, if you believe that the Irish Car bomb is a «concoction that contradicts the plight of the Irish in both Europe and America» then why in the hell do you serve it? To top that, if your Irish bar doesn’t like the improper celebrating of St. Patrick, why are you open on St. Patrick’s Day? Shouldn’t you be closed to allow your employees time to celebrate and worship St. Patrick? Nope, you choose to be open to make money and over-​charge all of us «morons» I’ll make sure that my «miserable existence» will not bother you with my (or my friends) business ever again.
Comment from Grant M. of Mother Egan’s Irish Pub 9÷2÷2009
For F’s sake… first let’s consider whether Saint Patrick would endorse an alcoholic beverage named an «Irish Car Bomb.» Second, consider the volume of morons like yourself who think Saint Patrick’s Day is about getting drunk via a concoction that contradicts the plight of the Irish in both Europe and America, multiply that by 500, and try to wash that much glassware in 10 minutes. Wake up. Ignorantly insult the Irish ON SAINT PATRICK;s DAY and be upset that you have to spend $ 9 to do so? You’re still alive to whine about your miserable existence, when you ought to thankful a real bomb hasnt

One of my favorite forms of relaxation, is enjoying an ice cold Guiness and a game of darts with a friend. Mother Egan’s has proven time after time to be one of the best bars in Austin for both.
The indoor atmosphere feels private, like being in a friends basement. Although it’s dark, the dartboards are well-​lit and with four of them, there is usually at least one open for us to play on (until other dart players read this review, that is).
Grant and the other bartenders have always been Johnny-​on-​the-​spot to fulfill any of our food or drink requests. The Guiness is properly poured, and it hits the spot every time!
They also have a nice deck and often have live music.

Sucky! We walked in this bar just because we were passing by. Took a seat at the bar and ordered a beer. It was late on Friday and the bar was empty! Since there was no one there, I didn’t understand why after 20 minutes, no one even looked our way so we could order more beers. The bartenders were walking around with a scowl complaining about their marriages and the bar to whoever was listening. Lame. Skip this bar.

Two words — curry fries. Would have never even dreamed this combination up but we tried it and it was awesome! And I would have never pegged an Irish pub as a place that has damn tasty curry, but hey, it’s nice to be surprised. It was dead slow (but that didn’t bother us, we were just there to hang out and having the pick of the tables on the patio was just fine with us.
Our waitresses (one was training) were super awesome and attentive, sometimes when you sit on the patio away from the bar you get ignored, but my glass never was empty for very long. The drinks weren’t kick-​you-​in-​the-​ass strong, but totally adequate. I’m not exactly sure how much they cost because I didn’t pay, but when my friend got the tab it seemed reasonable for what we got.
I do believe we will be back. The patio is fantastic and I’m always looking for great patios on which to drink away my evenings. I will need to try their fish and chips even though there have been some bad reviews. The shepard’s pie looked amazing. Maybe someday I’ll even get out on a weekday again and we can hit up the trivia night cause that sounds like fun. Yay, Mother Egans, I’m a fan.

It’s fine… It’s nice… It’s kinda boring. It doesn’t feel terribly authentic or pub like. The menu is pretty simple — Fish & Chips, Corned Beef & Cabbage, and Shepard’s Pie are really the only Irish things on the menu. While other things on the menu are burgers, chicken sandwiches and salads. The appetizers have quesadillas and fried mushrooms — hardly Irish.
The taps are pretty standard with the requisite Guinness and Smithicks pints.
The covered outdoor patio is large and quite nice. I have been to a few functions on the outside patio over the years and it’s a great place to hold an event especially when you have over a hundred people.

Probably my top «Irish» bar in town. Good crowd that’s usually very a laid back. The kind of place you can come on a Sunday afternoon and watch a random game while chatting about it with total strangers.
The kitchen, meh. I had a horrible experience with their corned beef and cabbage, but others seem to like some of their food. I’d skip it though. Once bitten and all that.
But… nice staff every time I’ve gone. Good taps and whiskey. Smithwicks on tap and Jameson make me damn happy.
All in all a good place to come hang without the nutty-​ness of 6^th.

Mother Egans is living a lie. They need to take down that faux-​irish pub exterior and deal with the fact they’re a sports bar.
Despite being from Boston, I’m not normally one to harp on whether or not an Irish pub is authentic enough, but calling Mother Egans an Irish pub is like calling Burger King an authentic 50s diner.
Sure, Burger King started in ’55 …sure, they serve hamburgers, but this is where the comparison ends. Likewise, you may see someone of Irish decent in Mother Egans, but aside from that, it’s just another bar on 6^th street.
A disappointing one at that. Like Club Deville, the interior is on the smaller side and clientele generally seem to favor the patio, which is the most awkwardly situated patio I’ve experienced thus far in Austin.
It’s multi-​level, cut in half by a railing, and the seating situation often results in either awkwardly standing next to someone who’s sitting down eating, or trying to sit next to someone who’s standing and talking 6 inches away from you. This is a patio with absolutely no consensus on what it wants to be. I’ve seen plenty of multi-​level outside areas pull things off… this is not one of them.
They sell a 24oz. mug for $ 15, with $ 10 refills of a few select drafts served outside. It *seems* like a good deal, since the glass looks massive, but then you consider that you’re essentially paying $ 5 a pint for a vastly limited selection of beer.
The glass is worth the initial $ 5 to have a giant mug to bring home, but the Oktoberfest I got served in it was, to quote my 2-​star rating: «Meh. I’ve experienced better.»
We went on a game night, which further complicated the matter with loud fradults and intermittent /​random screaming whenever a UT student took his football from the green colored grass area into the orange colored grass area. If this is your crowd, it works. If however you’re the sort of person who liked Joy Division before the turn of the century, it’s unbearable.
That said, I will back up the claim that the staff were all really, really nice. The center area of the patio, where the game people were camped out, had a few picnic tables that looked like they might be nice to sit around in.
Recommended for larger groups of sports fans who plan on heading in early. For everyone else, there’s about fifty better options on that street.

HELLO TRIVIA and BEAUTIFUL WEATHER.
You go hand-​in-​hand like a guinness and cider… or a guinness and bass. You’re beauitful. And to be admired.
Especially when the mayor of austin is reading the trivia (poorly… but showmanly) and screwing up the questions. It’s a sight to behold. We answered your questions, (MOSTLY correct!!) and then corrected the ones that were incorrectly asked — all for fun’s sake.
We’ll be back, week in and week out so long as the weather is purty. Thanks for the ever-​so-​pleasant stumble and slur.

This was by far the mellowest place I was in during a 4 day trip to Austin. I always liked hanging out in Irish Pubs, and it wasn’t a bad place, so much as there are so many other places to go. It was dark, quiet, with your standard Irish Pub décor, and one of those «countdown to a day when you should go nowhere near an Irish Pub» St Patrick’s day clocks on the wall.
But, it was not quite dark enough, and a little too quiet. Everyone else in there seemed to be a pretty tight-​knit crowd of locals, and that’s cool, but I didn’t hang out too long.

I am giving Mother Egan’s Irish Pub four stars for their ultra difficult pub quiz. What is wrong with you people?!? There are drunk people in the bar that need to concentrate on standing up and not pissing their pants!!! How dare you make up questions so difficult that sober people have trouble with them.
That said, everyone at Mother Egan’s is real friendly. Bunch of damn intellectuals.

I love Irish pubs, trivia and bar games, but this has been the dialog between various members of our table and our waitperson, every Tuesday:
«Hey, got any specials?»
«Yes! $ 4 hefeweizens.»
«Eeeyuck, I’ll take a Smithwicks or something.»
later,
«Hey — what’s a cheap can of beer here?»
«Good question — I’ll ask.»
later,
«So, what’s the cheapest drink in the house?»
«Hm, definitely $ 4 hefeweizens.»
«So, there’s no like $ 2 Lone Star or anything like that???»
«Yeah, no.»
«How much is a Miller Lite?»
«$ 3″
“Deal.»
And here’s another:
«Hey, I see those Dewars reps placing drink menus on the tables… what’s the deal, free booze?»
«Hmm, I’ll ask.»
(…she never asks…)
«Hey — those Dewars reps; any drink deals?»
«Nope. But they brought these hats and boas.»
The place is the communist Russian frozen tundra of cheap drinks. That’s a shitty metaphor; I’m just saying you’ll spend a lot. Trivia is pretty good though.

I gotta say… If you’re looking for an irish pub, you’ve found a fine candidate in the race. Granted, it’s not in a wooded meadow of green pastures full of pots of gold (hello stereotype!), although you will stumble across the occasional Irish fellow/​lady.
My experiences here have been honest and authentic. Truthfully, most of the time, I’m en route to some other oddly chosen, sub-​par bar in the warehouse district when I suddenly hear angelic Irish folk music ringing in my left ear. More times than not I turn my wheeled vehicle around and head in the direction of Mother Egan’s.
Not only do they have a GREAT trivia on Tuesday evenings, but they have a consistent Irish cuisine (I doubt the FRIED snickers dessert is included, but whatever), atmosphere, and selection of brews, but that’s besides the point.
Honestly, it’s always a good time. I’m constantly finding myself watching a slew of Irish dancers or some fabulous trio playing traditional irish jigs and solemn exit songs.
Check it out sometime… and hey… maybe you’ll get a little kiss out of it. Get it… because I’m Irish… OK.

Jehovahs Witness Protection Program.…
Pretty much my favorite team name from Tuesday night trivia at Mother Egans. The food is adequate for pub food… I guess. I always get chicken nachos, so how would I know? And the trivia is pretty fun.
Starts at 7:30 but someone on your team better get there by 6:45 if you hope to secure a table. 7 rounds, 10 questions a round. You’ll usually get out of there by 10:30 (unless you are on my team in which case you’ll be out of the running by about 7:35 and free to leave).
Good times.
Last night our team was named the «Burnet Road Superf*&ks (everytime)» as a memorial to this:
(props to Robin S for Unilocaling about it and the legendary Michelle C for the pic)

The first time I went to Mother Egan’s was for my good friends Wedding After party. We took over the whole back patio, drank and danced and partied. I thought it was nice.
Lately though Ive been coming here every other Wednesday for these incredible film networking parties. Every other Wednesday all those in every way related to the film world (and sometimes the theater) roll in, listen to a speaker, drink beer and purposefully schmooze.
I had literally the best waiter I think I have ever had in my whole bar experience here. I was clear on the other side of the room and he made a point of walking in between the huge crowd of people every ten or so minutes to see if I wanted another.
And Ive heard seriously good things about the trivia nights too, they are on my to do list.

In my opinion, one of the better Austin pubs. Great, great atmosphere. Quite good pub food. An incredible locale for taking in a sporting event with friends. I had the privilege of watching a few World Cup games here and could literally feel the tense buzz of excitement in the air. The place is always noisy and usually packed, but has ample seating and a waitstaff that tries their best to accommodate the hungry herd. I’ve only been snapped at once, and that was during the U.S. vs. Italy game when I asked the barkeep for a Diet Coke instead of a beer (I’m sorry…)
Indoor/​outdoor seating. Average prices. Tuesday night trivia. A calendar of year-​round special events. Great location on 6^th.