I’m trying to get as much out of SXSWi as I can without having a badge. I got myself out early after dropping off my son at school and hit Las Manitas for a small meetup of early arrivals from Laughing Squid, Technorati, Mahalo and Yahoo among others.

Photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid 

I made it back out around 10:30 and scored awesome parking at 3rd and Brazos for the Laughing Squid, blip.tv party at Six which has engulfed the bar area over Spaghetti Warehouse and the old B-Side. Bitter End has officially been demolished. I guess I don’t get over to the Warehouse district much these days. After waiting for 20 minutes to get to the roof bar, I passed Robert Scoble on the way in and found Metblog tech wiz Jason DeFillippo and introduced myself, finally meeting him in person. As with most SXSWi’s, it seemed as if San Francisco had taken over Austin. I spotted Matt Mullenweg of WordPress (the new platform for Metblogs) and then shortly thereafter met Kevin Rose from Digg and the staff from JPG magazine. We later hooked up with Sean Bonner, the other half of the duo responsible for Metroblogging. A good night for everyone in general. I think Sean summed it up best.

Many local news sources are reporting that The Bitter End, damaged in a fire in August, will not be re-built after all. The current location and the parking lot to its south are slated for a new hotel sometime in the future.

From what I can gather, most of the current employees of the restaurant will move across the street to the new Capitol Brasserie, run by the same group that owns Bitter End. I suppose that Craigslist posting last week wasn’t all that necessary? Capitol Brasserie replaces another venture by the same owners, Mezzaluna. From the description, it sounds like Capitol Brasserie will be something similar to Les Halles in NYC.

I guess B-Side will remain open for now, but I’m assuming that it’s ultimately doomed as well. The articles seem to imply that Bitter End may return at an alternate location, but plans are vague. There’s a meeting for employees to discuss the future of the location and its staff sometime today.

So we’re going to lose another decent local business and parking lot to a hotel? Seems to me that parking is scarce enough as it is in the warehouse district. Do we really need another hotel downtown at the expense of an existing (historic?) building and business?

Charlie blogged last week about the Bitter End fire. My son goes to school with a child of one of the waitstaff there and he just posted this to our school message board:

I wait tables at the Bitter End, and I know some of you must have heard that the Bitter End was struck by fire last Sunday afternoon. No one was hurt, but the 3 alarm blaze destroyed the kitchen and shut down the brewery. The kitchen will be rebuilt from scratch, but that will take two months.

HERE’S HOW YOU CAN HELP: The B-Side lounge & taproom at the Bitter End is now open for business and what our employees (including myself) need is for everyone to come by and spend some money, drink some local beer, and help fill the tip jars. We will also have an “Employee Fire Relief Fund Jar” to fill that will be split amongst the staff that are not working that shift. Tell everyone you know that we are open and need their business!!!

Our management staff is shuffling schedules to give everyone a chance to make some money and get some financial relief. Benefits are around the corner and more info will be forthcoming. Our friends at Live Oak and other local breweries are supplementing our Bitter End beer supply (we saved about 75 kegs of BE beer).

I myself thought the whole place as shutdown because of the fire, but that’s apparently not the case. So, if you’re looking for a place for a few happy hour drinks this week, head to B-Side and help out the staff there as they try to get through the next couple of months. I’m always up for drinking for a good cause, especially when it involves Austin Pale Ale!

They were everywhere on the Avenue, searching for dining spots. The bags they carried said “NISOD.” The signs at the convention center said “welcome NISOD.” Who were they? They were peering in the window at the Grandeza exhibition at Mexic-Arte, but it was closed, to our disappointment. It’s to be there only through June 26. Chez Nous was, as usual, closed just because it was Monday. A companion was longing for seafood crepes, but was out of luck. We parked there on Neches and walked out to Sixth Street, which was fairly deserted, but for various permanent-appearing “transient” types and the occasional lost-looking NISOD-er.

The dining room at the Stephen F. Austin was open; the grill and the 1886 were open at the Driskill, and the 1886 was bustling, with all the tables on the porch occupied. The croissants and breakfast pastries did not look as appealing as those made by Sweetish Hill, but the various cakes were very elegant and decorated with restraint.

Louie’s was closed. Mike’s had been open until one o’clock; McCormick & Schmick opened at at three. Mike’s had probably opened on the holiday to serve all those poor people stuck at the Capitol. It is strange beyond belief to see a “no smoking” sign in Mike’s window. Even if nobody smokes there ever again, the aura of tobacco will never, ever vanish from that hallowed venue. Dogtown was open and stays open until three in the morning most of the time; Noodle-ism was doing quite a good business. Manuel’s was packed at 1:30 and stayed that way for the next hour and a half. We didn’t stop to check, but the Iron Works and Old Spaghetti Warehouse appeared to be open.

The NISOD people all toted NISOD swag-bags. Some were staying at the Holiday Inn along the IH-35 frontage road and walking downtown through the shade of the Rainey Street neighborhood, where suddenly “for sale” signs are up all over the place. NISOD people were not observed along Congress south of the river, although the tourists were many, especially at G