That's $50 million for all bars, restaurants and hotels just in the month of May 2012. That figure is up 25% from May of 2011. Austin has a population around 800,000. A back of the napkin calculation of 75% of the population being 21 or over, means that we spent roughly $100 on booze on average per person.

Of course, when you apply the Pareto principle, that a small percentage of the population accounts for most of the effect, you most likely have a minority of the population that is spending a ridiculous amount (hundreds to thousands) on alcohol here per month. Not everyone goes to a bar or restaurant and orders booze. But some go a lot. Some locations account for much more of the effect all by themselves. The W Hotel downtown sold $500,000 of booze all by itself.

I haven't been downtown at night in quite a while, but I bet that it's just nuts down there now.

http://www.statesman.com/business/austin....

Quote:

The W Austin Hotel, 200 Lavaca St., once again topped the list among individual venues, reporting purchases totaling an estimated $449,000.

Barton Creek Resort, 8212 Barton Club Drive, was No. 2, selling $422,000 worth of alcohol, followed by $378,000 for the Four Seasons Hotel Austin, 98 San Jacinto Blvd.

May = Graduation

True. Keep in mind there is something huge going on 8 or 9 months of the year here between SXSW, Austin City Limits festival, UT football games, etc. Starting this November, Formula 1 will be in town.

My brother just visited his old computer-geeky pals in Austin, where he worked at Intel until I'm guessing 1990 or so. He said they are booming down there, all his pals are multi-millionaire mid-upper mgmt at Intel or several others. Not that there is any guarantee of that or anything else, these were bright folks.