I have been told that this is an Austin landmark, part of ‘Keep Austin Weird’ culture; a place like this does not exist anymore. Nau’s Enfield Pharmacy, is a soda fountain and diner at a Pharmacy, an anachronism by itself.
Many years ago my husband had been to Nau’s and talked about this unique place. But I was a little apprehensive about the idea of eating in a pharmacy and we had not ventured yet, till recently we had some out of town guests who we wanted to experience the Austin culture.
After some sightseeing downtown, we passed some residential neighborhoods to reach this place. It felt weird walking into an antique looking pharmacy for lunch; our guests were pretty game like my husband. So we went ahead. When we walked in, the place had a quaint setting. There is a curved soda bar with bar stools, old wooden booths and some metal tables and chairs, all in the middle of a pharmacy! It has an old world feeling, a diner with a grill and bar, serving malt, milk shakes, ice cream sodas and floats. There is also an old coca cola cooler. One would think any time now, John Travolta would walk in his ‘Grease’ best, wearing his T’bird’s leather jacket.
The place was surprisingly pretty occupied. There were some old folks, some artistic types and some others who seemed regulars. The place offers breakfast menus like tacos and omelets, and grilled sandwiches and burgers for lunch. Not forgetting of course the soda fountain, shakes, sundaes and floats. We had a very friendly waitress who took our orders. All of us decided on burgers. Couple of us got the big version of the burgers, while my husband ordered a smaller burger with the double patty, saying it was less bread and more meat. He was right. But all our burgers were amazingly good. The burger patty was hand made from fresh ground beef and grilled to perfection. The burger served on a soft grilled/toasted bun was stacked with lettuce, tomato, slice of onion and jalapeno peppers. The burger at this old fashioned place was juicy and delicious and can be classified in the ideal burger category.
The burgers here do not come with fries since they don’t have a permission to have a fryer at the pharmacy. The kids were disappointed, but enjoyed the kettle fried potato chips and jalapeno flavored kettle chips which were a perfect accompaniment. We also ordered root beer float to not miss out the soda fountain experience of this place.
Of course, places like these are excellent conversation starters. We were still sinking in the retro feeling while eating at the pharmacy, when we also noticed a camera crew and reporters in the place. Apparently they had come to interview Feliz Martinex, who was retiring after working in this place for fifty years! It was a historic episode at Nau’s , their employee since fifty long years was retiring. Wow.
After enjoying our unique dining experience, we were also happy that the lunch was great value for money. The prices at this place were reasonable. After stepping out of Nau’s pharmacy, we saw Café Medici . We had heard about this café’s cappuccino artist winning some contest s and were intrigued to check it out. But we had more things to show about Austin and took our guests later to Café Mozart , a happening place in Austin.
Cuisine: Burgers and sandwich
Price Range: Not expensive
Dress: Whatever
Rating: ***
Website: http://www.nausdrug.com/
Foods reviewed:
- Double patty small Burger
- Cheese Burgers- big version
- Cheese burgers- small version
- Root Beer Float
