SXSW 2007: The Free Food Recap
The day parties were rife with food, and the free booze flowed with an intensity the Colorado River could never afford. Let us now take a brief glimpse at some of the best free food buffets SXSW ’07 had to offer. I’m skipping the watered-down ones. These are the parties that did everything right:
| South by Southwest Free Food 2007: The Best of the Best | Date/Time | Locale | Benevolent Organization | Highlights/Notes |
| Wednesday 3/14, 130pm | Emo’s Annex | 3rd Annual IODA SXSW Opening Day Bash hosted by Pigeon John | Not sure if it was planned this way, but the “Day One Free Booze” policy combined with the staggering food spread (tamales, quesadillas, kebab skewers) and a light drizzle outside the tent managed to work people into an absolute frothing frenzy. Thus you get things like girls ordering up eight newcastles at a time. Big ups to IODA for starting the week on the right foot. Grade: A |
| Thursday 3/15, 1pm | Emo’s Main Room | The Onion | The notable lack of alleged free PBR was offset by a stellar daytime lineup and the free quesadilla queue in the backyard. ’Dillas, rice, beans and the trimmings took the edge off the previous nights’ festivities while making one wonder, “What’s next today and what should I be drinking?” Grade: B |
| Thursday 3/15, 2pm | Club Deville | New West Records | Based out of Austin as well as Los Angeles, New West probably put as much thought into the venue and the menu as they did the lineup. Invitees enjoyed a spread of stellar beef, chicken and the almighty mushroom veggie fajitas, an endless pour of local brews on tap, and the erratic (drunken?) countrified antics of Rickie Lee Jones up on stage. A better patio you could not have hoped to end up on during this particular timeslot. Grade: A |
| Thursday 3/15, 3pm | Lava Lounge | Fontana Distribution party | (Former) Local favorite Ian Moore kept the well-sauced older crowd in music outside while the full-on Bar-B-Q spread and Shiner Bock ticket dispensal system inside insured nobody went hungry or thirsty during what was probably their 4th lunch of the day (average calculation based on date, time and abundance of badges at venue). Grade: B+ |
| Saturday, 3/17 1230pm | Habana Calle Annex | The Musebox / Imeem | You may have noticed I skipped Friday’s mediocre offerings and jumped straight into Saturday. And why the hell not? The Musebox took care of everybody so hospitably Saturday morning, it was as if Friday had never ended. Champagne mimosas courtesy Barefoot wines, strong, dark coffee and build-your-own-breakfast tacos with hot-as-hell salsa were accented by beans, rice, potatoes, churros and a staggering array of pastries, all to a soundtrack of “this is good, but when should we go across the street?” (continued in next listing)…Grade: A |
| Saturday, 3/17 130pm | Habana Calle | LeTigre NY2Lon /BrooklynVegan /Etc | A quick hop across the street to the Ny2Lon party revealed a shocking absence of food so early in the day, but a stellar lineup and a very liberal FREE BEER AND VODKA ANYTHINGS policy put things where they should be in no time flat. The right amount of televisions tuned to basketball at the indoor bar didn’t hurt the proceedings, I might add. Set to a soundtrack of Malajube and urged on by Fratelli acoustic antics, I found here the very wobbly formation for what will surely go down on record as my drunkest St. Patrick’s Day of all time. Grade: A+CHEERS |
