Austin's Best Food Tours

Donuts on South Congress: An Austin Walking Tour Built for Strolling

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Start on SoCo

Locals don't call it South Congress Avenue. It's SoCo, and it's where our Austin donut tour lives. You meet your guide on the avenue and head off on foot, past vintage shops, food trucks and live music spots, with a painted wall seemingly every few doors. You'll want your phone out. Look north and Congress Avenue runs in a straight line toward the Texas State Capitol, which is a good moment for your guide to explain how this was once a sleepy road out of town and how it turned into the street everyone comes to see.

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Every stop is local and independent. That's the point. You taste your way down the avenue at an easy walking pace, and your guide fills in the stories behind the storefronts as you go. Austin has a homegrown streak a mile wide, and the bakers and donut makers along SoCo show it off one bite at a time.

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Sweet stuff, and yes, tacos

Most food tours in Austin chase brisket, and fair enough. We went a different way. This walking tour is mostly about the sweet stuff, with a taco stop too, because this is Austin and we're not monsters. Plus the murals you'd otherwise walk straight past. It works well on your first morning in town, before you know your way around.

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A word on the weather: it's Texas. Sunglasses help. So does water. Comfortable shoes, definitely, and come hungry, because the South Congress Donut Tour doesn't leave much room for second breakfast.