Special Dinners Out in Austin, Delivered to the Door

A lot of the dinners we drive are birthdays, and a birthday dinner rarely ends at the table. The group leaves Olamaie or Kemuri Tatsu-ya at nine thirty full and happy, the bus is idling with the lights on, and the question is where next. Rainey is ten minutes from anywhere downtown, a rooftop at the Summit or the LINE is closer, and a dessert stop at Amy's on Guadalupe or a late slice on South Congress is the move for a group that is done with drinks. The bus makes the second half possible, because the alternative is twelve people deciding whether to get their cars and drive to a bar. On the vehicle the decision is one conversation and a five-minute ride. A 20-passenger party bus is the usual fit for these nights: room for sixteen at dinner, gift bags on the bench, and the bar and lighting ready when the night changes gears.

Dinner groups are often small: eight or ten people, the couple and their oldest friends, a family celebrating a graduation with one long table. In our booking data, groups of ten or fewer have historically seen a median of about $175 per passenger, because the vehicle minimum is split across fewer people, and limousine quotes overall have worked out to a median of about $146 per passenger. Those are historical references from our records, not a price for a particular date, and they tell a group of eight what the night tends to run. What that buys is a black Lincoln or a white Chrysler 300 stretch that pulls to a restaurant door without the curb problem a thirty-foot bus creates, a privacy divider, and a wet bar for the toast on the way home. A limo sprinter is the middle ground for twelve: executive seats, a quiet cabin, and room to stand up in.

Some special dinners leave town. The Salt Lick in Driftwood is forty minutes southwest on FM 1826, a barbecue pit under the oaks where a group of twenty eats family-style at picnic tables, and the bus cooler matters because the restaurant is bring-your-own. Bee Cave and Lakeway have dinner spots on RM 620 with a Lake Travis sunset on the way, and Wimberley and Dripping Springs have the ranch-style rooms that book out for anniversaries and reunions. The drive out is bright and the drive back is dark, two-lane, and full of deer, which is the best argument for a driver who does this every weekend. On the bus the ride home is an hour of low lights, leftovers in butcher paper, and a group that spends the whole time saying they should do this more often. Then the drop-offs across South Austin and the last person off at eleven.