Ski Shores Cafe

It happened every year. The air got heavy, the trees turned green, and the nights grew long and sleepless. Soon after, I'd receive an invite to my college friend's annual beach house weekend, hosted in a quiet Michigan town where the residents wore pastel polos and drove convertibles and had the freedom and privilege to shop indiscriminately.

I'd see my college friends and listen to them talk about pool maintenance and mortgages and football on Sundays. We'd drive into town to buy beer and hot dogs from a store staffed by college students who smoked joints in the parking lot. I'd stand on the beach, looking out over the cold blue water, endless like the possibilities of summer.

Inevitably, summer drifted away, the wind stripped the leaves from the trees, and the long wait for next year's beach house weekend settled in. But one year, the invite didn't come. And neither did it come the next year. Or the next. People grew older, had kids, moved away. And the tradition died out like a tired flame.

I still think about that beach house every time I visit the storied Ski Shores cafe. It feels like coming back. There's really nothing divey about it, but it remains one of the most historic establishments in Austin, a persistent homage to its boating culture and lake rat scene. Take the winding roads over the hills here and you're instantly transported to a different place and time, a slice of Old Austin still preserved on the shores of the Colorado River.

Ski Shores Waterfront Cafe was opened by Marion Fowler in 1954 but today is run by Austin's higher-end MML hospitality group. The relaxed, breezy cabana vibe still remains though, and you don't even have to dock your boat here to enjoy the frosty beers, fried foods, live music, and pickleball court. It feels more like Martha's Vineyard than Texas, though you're just as likely to run into a local musician as a Porsche-driving venture capitalist.

69 years is long time to keep a place like this open. But just like summer, nothing lasts forever. Make the trip, because one of these years, that invite might not arrive.