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(Claire Partain/Austonia)
When Q2 Stadium head chef Sam Boisjoly began choosing what food would be offered at Austin FC matches, he said he hoped to create a microcosm of Austin within the stadium walls.
"If I had a friend that had a layover for three hours at Austin... if he came here, he would be able to see Austin," Boisjoly said.
Just a month after opening its doors, Boisjoly's wishes have come true. Sold out crowds continue to pack 20,500 Verde seats as they celebrate Austin's first major league team with pride and a party spirit.
Before home team Austin FC ever stepped foot on the pitch to play, Q2 Stadium was christened by the world champion U.S. Women's National Team as they played Nigeria in front of a sold-out crowd on June 16. Thousands of fans decked out in red, white and blue flocked to the stadium, proudly sang the national anthem and threw up a "tifo," or gigantic banner, to commemorate the match.
They did much of the same at Austin FC's first home match on June 19 in a celebration that was clearly about more than the team. With Minister of Culture Matthew McConaughey banding a conga drum, a massive art piece depicting iconic Austin figures, and Austin musician Jackie Venson giving a prematch performance, the game was clearly a tribute to city of Austin itself.
Q2 Stadium's first sold-out crowd combined Austin FC fans with Team USA supporters as they cheered on the USWNT. (Claire Partain/Austonia)
Rigo Rodriguez, a leader in fan club Los Verdes who helped create the tifo, said it all adds up to create an unforgettable experience at Q2.
"It's not just about the tifo, it's not just about the music, it comes all together... (and) becomes the heartbeat of Austin," Rodriguez said. "Every little bit helps to create something special for the city."
The matchday experience has become an all-day affair. As early as 11 a.m., a Verde army flocks to dozens of local bars and breweries, including nearby fan club headquarters Hopsquad and Circle Brewing, to get the party started. Sometimes, thousands can be seen marching on the stadium with the fan band La Murga, and supporters wearing anything from kilts to bright green wrestling masks lead chants outside Q2 before the stadium opens.
Once inside, fans can choose from dozens of local vendors, meet the mascot of the week—a rescue dog from Austin Pets Alive!—and hang out at Q2's giant Beer Hall, which features dozens of local beers on draft. Nearly every match, fan club members prepare a special presentation—from Pride art to Austin-centric chants—just before the national anthem is sung by a well-known local artist.
The supporters' section becomes nearly as entertaining as the match itself as they keep chants going all match long, release Verde smoke and toss their beers high into the air. Around the stadium, diehard fans and first-timers mingle as the club plays down below.
There's a reason that Austin FC's fan base has attracted both supporters with no prior soccer knowledge as and futbol fanatics. Many had been fighting to bring a team to Austin for years, and supporters recognize the importance of the club every single matchday.
Jay Torres, a "capo," or band leader for La Murga, was one of the first to get his "home"—the Austin FC crest—tattooed on his arm. Torres was part of the movement to bring a team to Austin as far back as 2018.
"It pulls the city together... it's beautiful," Torres said. "Lake Travis, Del Valle, and everything in between, we're all hanging out and pulling in the same direction. It brings people together."
Even when Austin FC was scoreless for the first three matches within their home fortress, Austin fans continued to sing for their team as they kept a steady drum beat with glow-in-the-dark bass drums. Three weeks later, when Austin broke the floodgates with four goals in a match, the already-loud crowd was deafening. Lights were dimmed to a deep Verde as over 20,000 cheered in Austin.
Austin FC player Jon Gallagher broke the ice with the first goal at Q2 Stadium in front of a roaring crowd. (Austin FC/Twitter)
At the Austin FC friendly match vs. all-star Mexican team Tigres UANL on Tuesday, Della W., who was decked out head to toe with the club's Verde colors, said the match was more about Austin than anything else.
"It's about supporting Austin and the city and showing people our culture... what we're about," Della said.
Della W., pictured left, said Austin FC matches are about more than just soccer- they're also an exhibition of Austin pride. (Claire Partain/Austonia)
All things Austin—from tacos to live music to a diverse soccer-loving community—are always on full display at Q2 Stadium, Austin's biggest party.
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Popular
(Pexels)
If you are a committed, grunge-wearing resident of the Pacific Northwest, it is easy–almost automatic–to look at Texas as an extraordinarily dry, hot and culturally oppressive place that is better to avoid, especially in the summer. Our two granddaughters live with their parents in Portland.
Recently we decided to take the older girl, who is 15, to Dallas. Setting aside the summer heat, a Portlander can adjust to the vibes of Austin without effort. So let’s take Texas with all of its excesses straight up. Dallas, here we come.
Our 15-year-old granddaughter and her sister, 12, have spent summer weeks with us, usually separately so that we could better get to know each individually. In visits focused on Austin and Port Aransas, the girls seemed to be developing an affection for Texas.
Houston and Dallas are two great American cities, the 4th and 9th largest, each loaded with cultural treasures, each standing in glittering and starchy contrast to Austin’s more louche, T-shirts and shorts ways.
Three hours up I-35, Dallas loomed before us as a set of gray skyscrapers in a filmy haze, accessed only through a concrete mixmaster of freeways, ramps and exits. I drove with false confidence. Be calm, I said to myself, it will all end in 10 minutes under the hotel entrance canopy. And it did.
The pool at the Crescent Court Hotel in Dallas. (Crescent Court Hotel)
We stayed three nights at the Crescent Court Hotel ($622 a night for two queens), a high-end hotel in Uptown, patronized by women in white blazers, business people in suits, and tall, lean professional athletes, their shiny Escalades and Corvettes darting in and out, and other celebrities like Bill Barr, the former attorney general who shoe-horned his ample self into a Toyota.
Each morning as I walked to Whole Foods for a cappuccino, a fellow identified by a bellman as Billy the Oilman arrived in his Rolls Royce Phantom. Where does he park? “Wherever he wants to. He likes the Starbucks here.”
We garaged our more modest set of wheels for the visit. We were chauffeured for tips by Matt Cooney and Alfonza “The Rev” Scott in the hotel’s black Audi sedan. They drove us to museums, restaurants and past the enclaves of the rich and famous. In Highland Park, The Rev pointed out the homes of the Dallas Cowboys' Jerry Jones and Troy Aikman along with the family compound of the Hunts, oil and gas tycoons.
The Dallas Museum of Art’s “Cartier and Islam” exhibit (until Sept. 18) attracted an older crowd; the nearby Perot Museum of Nature and Science was a powerful whirlpool of kids’ groups ricocheting from the Tyrannosaurus Rex to the oil fracking exhibit. Watch your shins.
A Geogia O'Keeffe oil painting called "Ranchos Church, New Mexico" at the Amon Carter Museum of Modern Art. (Rich Oppel)
For us, the best museum was the Amon Carter Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth, a 50-minute, madcap drive away via a 75 mph toll lane along I-30. Don’t try it during rush hour. The Carter has an exquisite collection of Remington paintings and sculptures and an excellent array of 19th and 20th-century paintings as well. Pick one museum? The Amon Carter. Peaceful, beautiful, uncrowded, free admission and small enough to manage in two hours.
The Fort Worth Stockyards, a place of history (with a dab of schmaltz), fun and good shopping, filled one of our mornings. The 98 acres brand the city as Cowboy Town, with a rodeo and a twice-daily (11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.) cattle drive. We shopped for boots, drank coffee and watched the “herd” of 18 longhorns. So languid was their progress that if this were a real market drive the beef would have been very tough and leathery before it hit the steakhouse dinner plate.
The cattle drive at the Fort Worth Stockyards. (Rich Oppel)
But we could identify: the temperature was 97. “I saw a dog chasing a cat today,” said the emcee, deploying a very old joke. “It was so hot that both were walking.”
With limited time, we chose three very different restaurants:
- Nobu, in the Crescent Court Hotel; Jia, a modern Chinese restaurant in Highland Park; and Joe T. Garcia’s in Fort Worth. Nobu’s exotic Japanese menu set us back $480, with tip, for four (we had a guest), but it was worth it.
- Jia was an ordinary suburban strip mall restaurant, but with good food and a reasonable tab of $110 for four.
- Joe T.’s is an 85-year-old Fort Worth institution (think Matt’s El Rancho but larger), a fine Mexican restaurant where a meal with two drinks was $115.
Sushi at high-end restaurant Nobu. (Crescent Hotel)
It was all a splurge for a grandchild’s visit. Now we will get back to our ordinary road trips of Hampton Inns, where a room rate is closer to the Crescent Court’s overnight parking rate of $52. And to corner cafes in small towns.
Did Dallas change our 15-year-old’s view of Texas? “Yes. I think it’s a lot cooler than I did. The fashion, the food.” So, not only Austin is cool. Take Texas as a whole. It’s a big, complex, diverse and wonderful state.
(Tesla)
Giga Texas, the massive Tesla factory in southeast Travis County is getting even bigger.
The company filed with the city of Austin this week to expand its headquarters with a new 500,000-square-foot building. The permit application notes “GA 2 and 3 expansion,” which indicates the company will make two general assembly lines in the building.
More details about the plans for the building are unclear. The gigafactory has been focused on Model Y production since it opened in April, but the company is also aiming for Cybertruck production to kick off in mid-2023.
While there is room for expansion on the 3.3 square miles of land Tesla has, this move comes after CEO Elon Musk’s recent comments about the state of the economy and its impact on Tesla.
In a May interview with Tesla Owners Silicon Valley, Musk said the gigafactories in Berlin and Austin are “gigantic money furnaces” and said Giga Texas had manufactured only a small number of cars.
And in June, Musk sent a company wide email saying Tesla will be reducing salaried headcount by 10%, then later tweeted salaried headcount should be fairly flat.
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