Small Victory
The martini menu is a flow chart, and it lists vodka next to gin without flinching.1
Why go
Josh Loving and Brian Stubbs opened it behind a nearly unmarked door on Seventh. The menu is the tell: every drink printed with an illustration, the recipe, a blurb and a citation.1 Loving worked Fino, Vino Vino, Midnight Cowboy, Weather Up and McGuire Moorman before this. At Half Step he ran the ice program, which is the part that shows up in the glass.1 The list reaches past the pre-Prohibition fashion into the whole craft repertoire. So a reworked tiki drink sits beside the Manhattan: his Hurricane drops the artificial sweetness for house passion fruit syrup.1
Order this / avoid
- A martini, and let the flow chart do its work.1
- Then the Rosita, which the menu traces to an Eighties Mr. Boston guide. Brandon Watson calls it
a wonderfully complex blend of reposado, Campari, Italian and French vermouths, and bitters,
and says negroni and boulevardier drinkers should order it in twos.1 - Avoid: arriving hungry. The food is Antonelli's cheese, charcuterie, house-sliced ham, olives and nuts. The room is too small for anything hot.1
What locals & experts say
- Brandon Watson, reviewing it for the Austin Chronicle in April 2016:
There's few bars in town with the commitment to quality that Small Victory has. I am hard-pressed to think of another cocktail bar with an actual wine program.
1 - I have not found a bylined piece since.
Good to know
- Where it is: 108 E Seventh St, downtown, behind a door that does not announce itself.
- Hygiene: clean and current. Austin Public Health scored the bar 94 on 20 February 2025 and 95 before that, both far above the city's failing line of 70.3
- Still going: the team opened a coffee and wine shop in late 2024.2
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "Eater award winner". I could not find an Eater Awards citation for this bar. So the note stands as his and the award is not claimed here.
Verdict
should-visit — Walk in late, and eat somewhere else first.