Good news on the waitlist front: We now have confirmed space for up to 40 people for the dinner at Perry's. For now, I've committed to 25 as we have nearly that many with those who have already registered and those who are on the waitlist.

I will begin processing the waitlist after Thanksgiving and, if any spots are left, I'll open up some inventory on the website. :)

Cool!^:)

^

I don't want to undermine the SL as a choice of venue (it's very Texas Hill Country and it's a nice drive out there; actually fairly close to my house) but no one should lament missing out on the BBQ which IMO is in about the 70th percentile of BBQ in and around ATX.

My apologies for the disappointment, Nick, but it is the venues that determine when and how many can tour at a given time.

Amy's Ice Cream has a set policy where they do one tour per day, Monday - Friday. It starts promptly at 10AM and lasts 20 - 30 minutes. Then, they have to attend to their production and delivery schedules. If some folks want to skip Friday morning's trek eastward, I can book another one for that day as well. Either way, the capacity is still 35 people per tour.

Perry's looks like it will be expanded to include a few more folks, but we'll know more after Thanksgiving.

Blue Bell is in the midst of changing their tour policy for 2012, but they also only offer them Monday - Friday. When we first considered this for the Do, it was simply "groups of over 25 need to make special arrangements". Now, it appears that they are going to limit all group tours to 20 people per tour. If that holds true and they don't allow us to have 27 for two tours, we're going to have to break it into three tours and that starts to bite into our itinerary to go to Shiner and on to City Market. If we do have to get it done with three tours of 20 each, we might be able to add 6 more folks to this one.

Spoetzel Brewery is probably the hardest of all our venues to work with, but I managed to talk them into doing two back-back tours of 25 people each at a time of the day that cannot be moved.

Finally, while there are no limits on the number of folks who can eat with us at City Market, we have to be there way before they close because anyone standing in line at 5:45 PM is forced to take their BBQ to go. There is plenty of time right now to finish Spoetzel Brewery and get to Luling for a nice sit-down dinner, but a third tour at Blue Bell certainly puts us at greater risk for being hurried.

Well, all I can say is whenever you're going to be in Austin, I'm glad to be your personal tour guide and we can visit any or all of these places with enough upfront planning. We don't even have to do it all in one week, either. ;)

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

I believe that the MegaDo is slated to visit the Salt Lick in Round Rock, not the original one that you are referring to near Driftwood.

Correct. The Driftwood location refused to seat a group on that Sunday, so the backup plan had to kick in.

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Now that the training exercise that is known as Thanksgiving is completed for the AUS DO and most of the tryptophan has worn off, can't wait to hear the forthcoming updates ;)

Hey when did registration open for this? Somehow I missed the announcement on the date it would open. I booked my hotel and air tickets quite a while ago.

Someone alerted me to this fact today, so I did register for everything just now, but not sure how this is going to work out without the bus transportation (how long is the waitlist?).

Early (and apparently optimistic ;)) warning (8/11/11):
4-day warning (11/7/11):
2-warning, with confirmation of firm date (11/9/11):
Actual announcement (11/11/11):

As of press time, there are currently 4 on the waitlist for the Amy's ice cream tour, 6 on the waitlist for Perry's (which I will clear this week), 2 on the waitlist for Blue Bell, 5 on the waitlist for Shiner, and 11 on the waitlist for the bus.

For those of you on the bus waitlist, I would strongly urge you to make alternate plans as a backup in case your waitlist spot is not cleared. I will be renting a van that will have a spot or two and hopefully some of the other locals will as well, but being proactive is always a good idea. :)

I am new to this DO thread, but I did have the question. Since I live in Austin, can I just come in and join some of the open events (Gingerman on Thursday night) or sign up for a few of the "visits"? Or I have to sign up for the whole thing.

Thanks and let me know if I can give any local advice too!
MT

You can register for only the events you want to attend. The sign up page has checkboxes for each one. So leave the events you don't want to attend unchecked. :)

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Thanks for the update... ;)

Alright, this San Antonio girl finally got around to registering.

For any of you waitlisted for the bus, I can take 3 more people in my car to the events I'm going to. PM me and I'll save you a space; As of right now I'll be attending the two Lake Travis events on Saturday and staying over in Austin on that night.

I'll also be heading out Saturday night in search of some real Texas music whether it be at Antone's, Nutty Brown, Hills, etc. Anyone that wants to come along, let me know.