Half Step
A specially-housed Clinebell block machine cuts the ice to the drink here, cubes or pellets depending on what the bartender is pouring.1
Why go
Chris Bostick built the drink program after a run at The Varnish in Los Angeles, and the bar opened on Rainey Street in January 2014.1 The move is to ignore the printed list.2
Order this / avoid
- Ask, do not read.
There's a neat little menu of classic and contemporary cocktails, but the bartenders here are good enough to make you just about anything.
2
What locals & experts say
- The Infatuation Austin leaves it unrated, by the outlet's stated policy of rating only places where you can eat a full meal, on a page bylined Nicolai McCrary dated 16 September 2022. The bartender line above is the only judgment on it.2
- The trade picked it first. Six weeks after the doors opened, Jen Keyser, thirteen years behind Austin bars and then pouring at Contigo and Midnight Cowboy, told the Austin Chronicle
Half Step is the new industry go-to.
She credited Chris Bostick withone of the most talented bar staffs in town
and said his custom icemakes us bar geeks really freak out.
3 - Jeff's own note here: "They have an ice program; enough said. bartender choice." The second half is the instruction above, in his words.
Good to know
- The ice fact is twelve years old. It comes from the Austin Chronicle's opening coverage in January 2014 and nothing published since confirms the Clinebell is still in service. Treat it as what the bar was built to do, not as a guarantee of what is in your glass tonight.1
- Hygiene: no finding, but the record is stale. Austin Public Health last scored the kitchen (register name
Half Step
, 75 1/2 Rainey St) 81 on 23 October 2024, after a 94 in June 2023. Neither is below the city's failing line of 70. Nothing newer has been published for this address, so read the October 2024 score as an old one rather than a current clean pass.4 - It is next door to Banger's, at 75 1/2 Rainey to their 79.4
Verdict
listed — A Rainey Street cocktail bar built around a housed Clinebell block machine cutting ice to the drink, cubes or pellets depending on the pour, opened in 2014 by Chris Bostick after a run at The Varnish in Los Angeles. The Infatuation does not rate bars but says the bartenders are good enough to make you just about anything, which is the instruction: skip the printed list and ask. Note that the ice fact comes from the opening coverage and nothing newer confirms it, and that the city has not inspected the premises since October 2024.