Austin’s First Gastropub, Parkside, Is Still One of the Best Downtown Dinner Spots
We caught up with Chef Shawn Cirkiel to talk about Parkside’s early days and its staying power in a rapidly growing Austin
When Chef Shawn Cirkiel opened the doors to Parkside in 2008 on 6th Street, the surrounding skyline looked markedly different. There were fewer luxury towers and no Michelin Guide Texas.
Back then, Cirkiel was simply trying to build what he still describes as “just a good restaurant.”
“It’s just a good restaurant,” he said. “Not everything all the time is groundbreaking. Not everything is always cutting edge. Sometimes it’s just enough to do a good hamburger, to do wood burning grilled sweet potatoes with miso butter and have an amazing cocktail and go to a show after and throw down and party at Mohawk, you know? Like that’s what it’s supposed to be about.”
A snapshot in time
It has been about 16 years since Cirkiel appeared on the cover of TRIBEZA’s May 2010 Cuisine Issue — seated in his 1959 Ford Fairlane, a slight smolder on his face, one hand on the steering wheel and the other resting atop a mountain of sweet cream unsalted butter. The feature explored Austin’s emerging New American movement, with Parkside at its center.
The cover shot was captured downtown on what was then a vacant concrete lot — today the site of a Westin hotel tower.
“The cover and the article was really a snapshot in time,” he said.
Cirkiel, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, sharpened his knives in some of New York’s most lauded kitchens, including Café Boulud, before returning home to Austin. He became the city’s youngest five-star chef at the now-closed Jean-Luc’s Bistro, eventually transforming the space into Parkside — Austin’s first gastropub.
At the time, the local dining landscape was far more binary.
“There was no restaurant that you could get foie gras and a burger. It was either you were doing a tasting menu at Si Bon, or you were going to dance. Things were much more kind of in their box.”
Parkside blurred those lines. With its raw bar, farm-to-table sourcing and late-night hours, it felt urban in a way Austin hadn’t yet experienced.
He remembers midnight crowds of hospitality workers filling the dining room after their own shifts ended. “We have every night, we have the servers, the GM, at midnight eating oysters and drinking champagne,” he said. “It very much felt… like a restaurant in New York or San Francisco, that was not available in Austin.”
Two years after opening Parkside, Cirkiel opened Backspace, Austin’s first Neapolitan pizzeria, tucked literally behind the restaurant.
An evolving city
Nearly two decades later, Austin is a different city. Downtown is denser, the restaurant scene more competitive and the national spotlight brighter. Cirkiel embraces that evolution.
“Austin’s so dynamic from arts to music,” he said. “We’re lucky to be a part of it and to still be a part of it.”
He points to the city’s growing talent pool as one of the most meaningful shifts.
“You used to have to go to places like New York, San Francisco, Chicago, France or Spain, if you wanted to experience that,” he said. “And now the amount of talent that is in Austin, that is in San Antonio… you can learn anywhere.”
Cirkiel speaks proudly of the chefs who have passed through his kitchens and gone on to lead their own. “I have been incredibly fortunate to hire well throughout both the kitchen and the front of the house,” he said. “The amount of team members who’ve been a part of all the different restaurants, who continue to go on and leave or grow and make an impact is pretty special.”
The secret sauce
For all the shifts in the industry, Parkside’s ethos remains surprisingly straightforward.
The restaurant still flies oysters in from the East Coast and has refined its beverage program, including a wine list spotlighting female winemakers.
Parkside has endured not by chasing every trend, but by knowing exactly what it is. In a dining scene often fixated on what’s next, its staying power makes a simple point: done well, “just good” is more than enough.
Parkside is open daily at 5 p.m., closing at 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. 301 E. Sixth St., Austin.
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