New Year's at The Scoot Inn { Austin / Part 1 }

We celebrated New Year's bigger than we've ever done before with energetic live funk music serving up it's own dance crew in Austin's east village dive bar the Scoot Inn. The 11-piece band known as the Sugarfoot Family All-Stars formed especially for the event included Memphis musician and native James Robinson, our host for the weekend. The outdoor venue seemed to gain its full capacity right near the beginning of the live music, a funk mash-up paying tribute to the known and unknown classics that all had beats you couldn't help dance to. Yeah, we got funky and had so much fun watching everyone else shake loose too. Filling in the entertainment were the Sugarfoot Hustlers on the main dance floor and DJ Greg Most on the turntable.

Inside the Scoot Inn, we got to play a few rounds of skee-ball on the same machines used by the skee-ball league in Austin. It's got Christopher on a hunt for skee-ball machines in Memphis so be on the look-out. We could see it catching on here in Memphis.

Just a few blocks away, we found a Mexican restaurant to get a quick bite before the Scoot Inn opened their doors. Las Cazuelas immediately looked like a gold mine of authentic food as we noticed only locals including Hispanic customers filled the space. I opted for the carne asada tacos which was as good as I would have hoped. The tortillas and the beef had enough flavor that I could enjoy it best with just a simple addition of fresh squeezed lime juice. After the New Year's party, we had another meal at a food trailer, something we wished could exist in Memphis. I'll talk more about that in Part 2. Stay tuned.

Fuji color film photos by Sophorn. Thanks James, S, and Valerie for ringing in the new year with us.